Your Past Does Not Equal Your Future

Being the first day of the new year, I think it would be fitting to write a post about the future. So here goes...

Everyone has made mistakes in their lives. Whether they be big or small, there are things in everyone's life that if they had the chance to do over again, they would probably do something different. It may be something as small as turning the light off in their living room before they left the house to go to work, or as large as wishing they would have said "I love you" one last time to someone who they never got to see again. And for many people, there are common situations that they face over and over in which they continue to make less than optimal decisions. For most people, this is a situation where something needs to be done but it doesn't have to be done right away. So either they do it anyway, or they procrastinate even though they know they shouldn't. Could this be you?

If you procrastinate often or commonly make poor decisions in other situations, it doesn't mean that you can't be successful. It just means that you won't be as successful, as quickly. Sorry, but it's true. However, obviously you can change. It doesn't matter how many times you've done something that you knew wasn't the best thing to do in the past, or how many mistakes you've made in the past. Why? Because the past does not equal the future. Maybe you faced some situations last year that you'll probably face again this year where you didn't make great decisions, but that doesn't mean you have to do the same things this year. Or maybe it wasn't last year, maybe it was last month, maybe last week, maybe yesterday, maybe even just a few minutes ago....it doesn't matter!

You are not the same person you were in the past. Think about it, you have something around 10 trillion cells in your body, millions of which are being dying and being replaced by new ones every minute. You experience new situations every day, which cause you to make decisions, which effect what happens afterwards. You meet new people constantly and think about new things all of the time! So obviously, you are constantly changing and will never be the same as you were last year, last month, yesterday, or even a minute ago. Since you are not the same person, you aren't locked into having to make the same decisions you made in the past. And if you didn't like the result of a decision you've made in the past, then you obviously shouldn't make that decision next time. Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The past doesn't equal the future. You are not who you were in the past. You have the ability to make new and better decisions in each and every situation in you encounter in the future, and I challenge you to do so concerning situations in which you didn't like the outcome resulting from the decision you made. If you've been keeping up with this blog and applied any of my suggestions in your own life in the past, then you've already begun to change yourself for the better. So rather than challenging you to start changing your life for the better by making new year's resolutions and all that....I would rather just offer you encouragement on your continuing journey down the road of success.