A friend of mine recently asked me if the younger version of me would be proud of me now. I didn’t answer the question directly, I tip toed and dilly dallied around the question without any clear answer. I started saying a lot of ‘eh, but you see . . . when I was younger, I was ill informed, ill advised and didn’t know how things work’.
Now am older and I know that things work a certain way and what will work and what will not work at least where I live. Then I realized that I was actually explaining very convincingly to myself why I am still the man I have always been, instead of the man I hoped to be by now.
Am I the man I have always been because I am behaving, acting and thinking like the man I have always been. No wonder the younger version of me sometimes feels like I have sold him out, because of my reluctance to do away to wean myself of my own ways. Ways that have worked in the past and have very often saved my day.
What about you, would the younger version of you approve of who you are and what you do now? Could it be that the reason why you still haven’t achieved some of your goals or you still haven’t become what you had hoped to be by now is because you have continued to behave, act and think in ways that have always brought the same old results.
It is very tempting to stick to what works, but if you want to create a new reality what works is sometimes your worst enemy because it reinforces the status quo that you want to change. So when it comes to changing your life you will need the courage to go where you have never gone before and hope that it will lead you to places you want to be.
Success as they say s the biggest cause of failure because most often when people succeed the tendency is to continue doing the same things that have brought success. This means that even when the habits, patterns and strategies that have brought us success stop working, we are at risk of continuing to apply the same irrelevant methods that have outlived their usefulness.
So why don’t you take stock of who you are, who you want to be and who aspired to be at this point in your life. Are you what you hoped to be, are you perhaps over weight, in debt or simply far from where and who you hoped you would be? Have you like most people stopped dreaming about what could be possible for you simply because you have been disappointed more than once?
What would happen if you started dusting that dream you had, has perhaps new dream been born that you are too scared to pursue because after all you have track record of not achieving your dreams? All that can change my friend, you can revive your dream or come up with totally you new dream which you will pursue with vigor.
But first you would have to embrace the fact that your past doesn’t equal your future, and that hold on to your past is to hold your future hostage. Most people are imprisoned by the past, that is why you should proactively experiment and learn new ways of doing things daily because if you don’t you patterns get set in stone and you approach each day with the same old mindset that guarantees the same old results. Of course no one is going to follow you around with stick asking you to change your habits, your thoughts or the way you have always been.
It is up to you to know who you want to become and how differently you have to behave today in order to become that which you aspire for. I must admit as we grow older it becomes much more difficult for us to change, that is why it is important for you to develop the habit of reinventing yourself and acquiring new and useful habits while at the same time getting rid of old and less useful ones.
Tonight take a look in the mirror and think about what you dreamt about five or even ten years ago. Is this where you wanted to be, is this what you wanted to be? If not ask yourself what you can do to start getting things back on track? Even if you are overweight maybe you can start something by the day is over to start getting back in shape. May be you can leave some food in your plate, or make a healthier choice or go for a walk or take the stairs. Or put tea spoon of sugar in your tea or not finish the drink that you started.
The point is to get started because as they say you don’t have to be great to get started but you have to get started to be great. Once you have started and you have momentum going it can begin to have life of your own.
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