Tip #7: IsThe Past Holding Your Life Hostage?
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The ability to put past events behind and move on enables any person to overcome failure and become a strong achiever. Someone who is unable to get over previous hurts and failures is held hostage by the past. The baggage he carries around makes it very difficult for him to movie forward. Successful people don’t dwell on past difficulties.
People who are unable to overcome the past allow their negative experiences to color the way they live their lives today. People suffer genuine tragedies in this imperfect world, but tragedies don’t have to stop a person from possessing a positive outlook, being productive, and living life to the fullest.
The problems of people’s pasts impact them in one of two ways: They experience either a breakdown or a breakthrough. The following 5 characteristics are signs that people haven’t gotten over past difficulties:
- Comparison – If you hear people continually talk about how much harder they’ve had it than anyone else, chances are, they are allowing themselves to be held hostage by their past.
- Rationalization - Believing that there are good reasons not to get over past difficulties. Excuses, no matter how strong, never lead to achievement.
- Isolation – Some people withdraw due to their past hurts. We need others physically, emotionally and intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.
- Regret – Regret saps people’s energy and leaves little enabling them to do anything positive. If you have found yourself getting on a flight to the City of Regret, recognize that it’s a trip you booked yourself, and you (and only you) can cancel it at any time.
- Bitterness – The inevitable consequence of not processing old injuries and tragedies. People do not have to remain victims of their past, but when they do they become prisoners of their own emotions. Those prisons are addictions – workaholism, alcoholism, sexual addictions and eating disorders.
There are people who’ve had it better than you and done worse. There are people who’ve had it worse than you who’ve done better. The circumstances really have nothing to do with getting over your personal history.
Breakthrough: The Alternative To Breakdown
Every major difficulty you face in life is a fork in the road. You choose which track you will head down, toward breakdown or breakthrough. One of the best teachers of persistence is your life’s critical “turning points.” Expect to experience 3-9 significant changes in your life.
Turning points can provide perspective, which is the ability to view major changes within the larger framework of your lifetime and let the healing power of time prevail. By learning from your turning points, you can grow at a deeper level within your life and career.
Just think – today may be your day to turn the hurts of your past into a breakthrough for the future. Don’t allow anything from your personal history to keep holding you hostage.
YOUR SEVENTH STEP:
Say Goodbye To Yesterday
To move forward today, you must learn to say goodbye to your yesterday’s hurts, tragedies, and baggage. List the negative events from your past that may be holding you hostage. For each item:
1. Acknowledge the pain.
2. Grieve the loss.
3. Forgive the person.
4. Forgive yourself.
5. Determine to release the event and move on.
Reply below to share your experiences. How did you feel after completing step seven? Was it difficult for you to do? Are you working on turning the hurts of your past into a breakthrough for the future? What do you think about these suggestions? Let us know! =)
Today’s Success Tip…
One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past. -James Long
With you on your journey…
NOTE: This is the 7th Mindset Tip in the series of a chapter by chapter summary of the book, “Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success” by John C. Maxwell.