Is your past holding you back?

You cannot obtain all the happiness, success and fulfillment that you desire when negatives from your past are holding you back.

If you feel something is stopping you short of achieving all you really long for, chances are it originates inside you.

You must learn to let go of the past if you want to truly soar.

Of course, letting go is not always easy.  Most of us are stuck in the past in one way or another.  We have a blindspot that some past experience created and this is holding us back from realizing our dreams.

Learn to Turn Past Negatives Into Positives

Recently, Brian Tracy’s publicity manager contacted me and asked me if I’d like a copy of Brian’s latest book to review.  I jumped at the opportunity to get a free copy because I always love what Brian has to say and find his work very useful in my life.

Brian wrote Kiss That Frog!: 12 Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work along with his daughter, Christina Tracy Stein.  Christina is a psychotherapist in private practice.  Together, Brian and Christina, deliver a powerful and insightful set of strategies to overcome past negatives in your life.

I found several real nuggets in this book that are helping me let go of the past and rise higher.  Things I wasn’t aware of before.

It is easy to believe that you’ve already fully dealt with all the negatives from your past, but that’s often not the case.  As I discovered as I read the book, most of us, can benefit from further work and understanding in this area.

Here are a few of the things that really impacted me from the book.

1.  One Past Negative Is One Too Many

“But holding on to this single negative emotion, refusing to forgive this one person or forgive what happened in that situation, is enough to undermine and destroy all your hopes and dreams for health, happiness, and personal fulfillment.”  ~ Brian Tracy

Brian equates holding on to one past negative — even unknowingly — to driving a car with one front wheel locked so it doesn’t rotate.  No matter how much you accelerate, you aren’t going to get too far.  You’ll just go round and round in circles.

If you are hanging on to unforgiveness, bitterness or pain from the past, you are still allowing that person or situation to have power over you.  Often, we think that by remaining angry or upset, we are punishing the one that wronged us.  In fact, we are only hurting ourselves.

Releasing that past negative is the best and only way to ultimately defeat it.

One past negative is one too many.  Letting go will free you to soar.

2.  Have a Happy Past

“Imagine that you chose your parents deliberately so that you could experience the trials and tribulations of a child growing up in that family because that was the only way you could learn, evolve, and grow into a better person.”  ~ Brian Tracy

The fastest way to overcome past negatives is to see them in a different light.  You get stuck interpreting your past through one specific lens.  However, there are often a number of different ways to make sense of what has happened to you.  You just need to look at it and process it differently.

A great example is your childhood (however, this same technique can be applied to any past relationship).  Most of us have some negative feelings about how we were raised.  After all, our parents were human, and therefore made mistakes.

Revise your interpretation of your childhood and you can have a happy past, one that lifts you up instead of holds you back.

The quote above really helped me see my childhood in a different light.  My parents divorced when I was about 13.  It devastated me.  However, as an adult, I can look back and see how that event also made me stronger, more reslient and exposed me to new people that had a positive impact on me.

I wouldn’t be the same person today if my parents didn’t divorce.  Ultimately, it helped me evolve into a better person.

It isn’t easy to admit because I’ve been stuck looking at it in the negative sense for so long.  It is so difficult to wrap my mind around this new perspective, but as I do, this new interpretation of the past is helping me in the present to be happier and more confident.

3.  Seek the Valuable Lesson

“Therefore, to teach you, to train you, and guide you toward your higher good, this great power sends you lessons, each accompanied by pain, so that you will listen and pay attention.”  ~ Brian Tracy

A powerful way to turn negatives into positives is to seek the valuable lesson in every problem or difficulty you encounter.  “Every problem or difficulty you face contains the seed of an equal or greater advantage or benefit,” according to Napoleon Hill.  Once you can identify the gift you are supposed to receive from a difficulty, you will have a more positive view of it.

I’ll admit this can be a tough one.  When you are in the middle of a difficult or painful situation, it is often very hard to see any kind of lesson or benefit.

However, later, after time has past and the raw emotion has faded, it is often possible to look back and learn from what has happened.  Knowing that you got some benefit from even the most difficult of situations, will take some of the sting out of it and help you to move on.

Several years ago, I was in business for myself.  The relationship with my largest client dissolved right before my eyes.  This was something I had invested a ton of time developing.  It was also what kept my business afloat.  Needless to say, I was crushed.  However, now I can look back and understand many valuable lessons from that experience.  I’ve grown as a result and what I learned has helped me achieve greater success.  The positives outweigh the negatives now that I see the valuable lessons.

Soar Like an Eagle by Letting Go of the Past

This is just a small slice of the wisdom that Brian and Christina share in Kiss That Frog!  I found this to be a very insightful and useful read.  I can certainly see how letting go of the past is so incredibly important if you want to live the best life possible.  As I said earlier, I think we all have work to do in this area, so I’d highly recommend this book.

Photo: Copyright PhotoXpress.com

Are you enjoying your life today?

I imagine that a lot of you will answer no to this question.  For one reason or another, maybe even one that you can’t accurately name, you’d say that you aren’t exactly happy.

Why not decide to enjoy life?  Why not choose to be happier today?

It really is a conscious choice that we can make.  After all, we choose to be unhappy.  We decide to get irritated, frustrated, mad, offended and upset.  We let ourselves dread the day.  We decide that we hate our jobs, don’t like our spouses and that everyone is out to get us.  Why not choose the alternative that is in our favor?

I challenge you to decide right this minute that you are going to enjoy your life today and begin choosing happiness regularly.  I’ll even help you get started down the right path.

Choosing to Enjoy Your Life

You need to make enjoying your life a habit – an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.  In other words, you need to structure your thinking so that happiness is the default.  Wouldn’t it be great to wake up every morning with a sense of hopeful, joyful expectancy instead of dread and apprehension?

You’ve got to retrain your brain to choose happiness so you can enjoy your life.

Here are five patterns of thought that can help you steer yourself in the right direction.  You’ll need to intentionally and purposefully practice this thinking until it becomes a regular pattern.  This will likely take several weeks, but the payoff in terms of your quality of life will be well worth it.

1.  Declare Your Resolve to Enjoy Today

“I will enjoy today,” make this clear declaration at the beginning of each day and commit to it.  Firmly resolve in your mind that, no matter what happens, you are going to stay positive and happy. 

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right,” says Henry Ford.  In other words, your mind is a very powerful influence over your reality.  Train your brain to expect good things and it will naturally help make it so.  Keep the thought, “I am going to enjoy today,” at the forefront of your mind.  Repeat it to yourself throughout the day when you feel circumstances tugging you in another direction.

2. Acknowledge You Have Everything You Need

If you are alive and conscious, then you have what you need to enjoy today. Everything on top of that is gravy. Therefore, I suspect that you have a lot of gravy that should make enjoying today even easier for you. Recount to yourself the things that you have to be thankful for and that makes enjoying today easier for you. For example, here’s some of what you might include:

• I am in good health.
• I have people that love me.
• I have plenty of food to eat.
• I have enough money to survive.
• I have access to clean drinking water.
• I have personal freedom.
• I have mental clarity.

You see it is really the basics in life that enable us to enjoy today – put all the other crap aside. Focus on what you have and not what you lack. Cast aside your excuses and embrace the opportunity to enjoy today. This is the moment you have. Don’t waste it.

3.  Visualize the Ideal Day

Once you decide to enjoy today and acknowledge you have what you need, then create a clear vision in your mind’s eye of how you want the day to go.  Imagine how you’ll feel, what you will do and where you will go.  In other words, plan to be happy.  Your mind likes creating models and matching your reality to these models.  Train it so it knows the path you want to follow.  At the start of each day, visualize your ideal day and your life will slowly, but surely, start moving in that direction.

4.  Grow Into It

You cannot trust your emotions.  They will lead you astray.  You have to grow into a pattern of thinking that allows you to control your reactions if you want to keep the world from stealing your joy.  A big source of unhappiness comes from letting your circumstances fire-up negative emotions.  It takes maturity and mental preparation to recognize when your emotions are about to get the better of you.  Lean on your resolve to enjoy today and immediately reject any emotions that go against your vision for the day.  It will take some work to make this a habit, but it is a powerful groove to create.

5.  Retain Your Power

“He made me mad,” is another way of saying, “I’m giving my power to him.”  You see, when you let the actions of another offend you and steal your joy, you have given them power over your life.  You have lost what you want – your peace and sense of well-being.  You say, “But Jeff, she was really wrong.”  I know, but by becoming offended, you aren’t really hurting her.  You are only hurting yourself.  You have to train yourself to retain your power.  Keep control of your day.  Don’t let some fool rob you of your enjoyment.  Brush it off and move on.  Again, this will take some practice, but once you make it a habit, then you’ll have many more positive days to enjoy.

Which one of these tips are you going to concentrate on?  Do you have another suggestion for how to enjoy life more fully?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Photo: Copyright PhotoXpress.com

I read this quote yesterday and thought it was particularly poignant so I thought I’d share it.  Wouldn’t it be great if we all approached life in this manner?

What if every time you fell down, it was to learn how to teach others to get up? What if every time you lied, it was to learn how to teach others to honor truth? What if every time you were hurt, it was to learn how to teach others to love? What if every crappy job you’ve ever had was to learn how to teach others the importance of purpose?

~Bob Garvey

I found the quote in an e-mail newsletter that I receive called Let’s Talk Motivation.  I wrote about this ezine a couple months ago.  The quote comes from an article written by Bob Garvey who is the author of Goal Setting – The Key to Finding Passion in your Career.  His web site is called Purposeful Goal Setting.  On the site, he offers a free copy of his new book called Purpose Takes Guts! if you provide your name and e-mail address.

This is a short post today because sometimes less is more.  I don’t want to take anything away from the quote and I can’t really think of anything meaningful to add to it.  I hope you will read it a few times and let it sink in.  Every time I read it, I am in awe of its wisdom.

Please give this post a Stumble or Digg by clicking the links below so others find this and benefit from it.  The photo is by Ulrich Thumult.

Attitude Check:  How’s your current attitude toward your goals?

I found the quick video below where Jack Canfield, the originator of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, discusses the benefit of being consistent in our attitude no matter what the circumstances.  I hope you enjoy it!

If you found this to be useful, please click the links below to give it a Stumble or Digg.