To continue your journey beyond today, you must define your present and confront your past. If you are seeking success beyond today and into the future, you must first define success and clarify the implications and steps necessary for you to attain it. Is success defined by the money you possess, the house in which you live, the chair in which you sit, the car you drive, the job you hold, the title of the position you hold, or all the external attributes that tend to or seem to indicate that one has “made it?”
What you must come to realize, is that success is not external, it is internal. If where you are going is based solely on external situations, external circumstances, and material possessions, you will never recognize your true success in life. Success is being able to accept who you are, where you are, where you came from, and where you are going, without reservation, without hesitation, and without regret. Success calls for you to relinquish your past, relish in your present, while rescripting and creating your future.
The bottom line is, no matter who you are, what color you are, where you came from, who your parents are/were, what you had/didn't have while growing up, your body size, your income or your social status, the level of success you have achieved and will continue to achieve, all starts with you and comes back to you. Wherever you are and wherever you aspire to reach in life, personally and professionally, depends on you. It’s important that you remember that anything and everything you aspire to do and become begins and ends with you. You are the dreamer and the creator of your future, regardless of your present or past situations, past circumstances, or past conditions. Yes, your past did occur, and it can’t be erased. You must recognize that no matter how your past looks, you cannot change it. However, you can determine, and you can create your future by using your past as steppingstones, instead of stumbling blocks!
Too often, it seems as if the negative situations, negative circumstances, and negative conditions of your past continue for a lifetime. However, the encouraging news is that situations and circumstances are only temporary, and conditions belong to you, only if you claim them or own them. I am sure that some of you have experienced some difficult situations and circumstances, and it is a wonder that you are still here. You have made it through the tough times, through the rain, and the storms. You have survived the seemingly never-ending piles of unexpected life circumstances, including financial devastation, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and other issues. You have somehow been able to sustain and maintain while juggling family matters, as well as work responsibilities. However, with God’s grace and His mercy, you have made it this far. As a matter of fact, because of God, you have survived your seemingly tumultuous past, and you don’t look like what you’ve been through.
To accept the success of your future, you must be willing to move beyond the negative situations and negative circumstances of your past. You must assess where you have been, without getting stuck in you past. You must also assess where you are, in your efforts to move into your future. If you hold negative inhibiting doors open, positive and inviting doors will remain closed. There were a lot of things that went wrong along your life’s journey. You made some mistakes along the way, a relationship went awry, sone things did not work out the way you hoped they would or the way you expected that they would. You made some wrong choices, you entered some negative situations, and you walked down some death-defying paths. However, no matter what did or didn’t happen, you must begin to close the cracks in the doors of your past for you to effectively deal with your present and prepare for your future. You must also admit that the reason you survived your past is because some things went right for you, and you made a few right choices and a few right decisions.
There are several steps necessary for you to move beyond your past to successfully create your future. You must start with self-forgiveness, which eventually gives you permission to forgive others. Doors of optimum success will be blocked and barred if you hold on to the negativity of your past with unforgiveness. You must see yourself as worthy, allowing you to see others as worthy, by moving through a process of forgiveness. Your heart is too small to hold onto mess, or to carry others in it. It is imperative for you to begin to let go and move forward.
So what you spilled the milk while carrying the container in which the milk was contained. Crying over the spilled milk will not correct the error. The spilled milk is not the problem; it is not doing anything about the mess once the milk is spilled. You must get up and dry your eyes, to provide an opportunity for you to see clearly how to clean up the spilled milk and for you to begin to assess how you were carrying the milk prior to the spill. Your assessment of the situation ensures that lessons are not only learned from the spill, but also from how you initially carried the milk. The problem isn't falling, it is not getting up.
Because you are human, there will be problems and things will not always go as planned. But guess what? There is always a light at the end of every tunnel. For you to see the light, you must want to see it and be willing to remove the blinders that have hindered and hampered you from moving forward. Since success is an internal state, it is a feeling, a belief, and it is knowing that you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that no matter what the circumstances and situations of life have been and what they seem to be, you have information that allows you to manage yourself and therefore begin to determine your life’s destiny. Benjamin E Mays once stated, “You might not get everything in life that you pay for, but you most certainly will pay for everything that you get.”
Another step on the road to moving beyond your past and creating your future, is increasing your self-esteem. Having high self-esteem will catapult you to greater heights than low self-esteem ever will. If you love yourself, believe in yourself, and trust in yourself, it won't be too difficult for you to accept yourself, no matter how barren your past might seem, believing that you are worthy of an even greater and brighter future. If you believe it, you can achieve it! It’s time for you to only glance at your past, in preparation for creating your future. Loving yourself and others gives you the energy and the reasons for letting go of your past, as you move into your future.
If you don't believe in you, how do you expect that your colleagues, your family members, your mate, your children, your friends, or anyone else will believe in you? You must believe that whatever you set your mind and heart to achieve, with hard work, perseverance, and determination, you can and will achieve it.
You must also learn to speak into existence the positive, learning how to deny, decry, and defy the negative of your past. Possessing self-determination is an act of being motivated and being prepared to take on that which may come before you, leaving that which was in your past behind you. It means that for every knockdown, you will get up, hold your head up, while looking up, as you keep moving forward. It’s remembering that a quitter never wins, and a winner never quits! Self-determination gives you permission to make mistakes. The problem isn't the mistake, its lying in the mistake after it is made and not getting up to clean up the mess, while finding a way to fix it up. Self-determination helps you to recognize the importance of not looking down, but learning to look up, remembering that the sky is the limit Looking down only yields you the ground.
You cannot change your past, but you can determine your future. As a matter of fact, not only can you determine your future, but you are also empowered to create your future. You must decide to do so today and every day moving forward. In determining and creating your future, you must have the proper attitude. Your attitude determines your latitude. You must not only have a winning attitude, but you must also have a win-win attitude. You must believe that you can win at whatever you do. You must believe that everyone around you can also win, and you must also align yourself with winners. You must begin to see yourself with “Positive People Going Places” (PPGPs). Anything you touch and whatever you do will turn to gold, because you have a rich and winning attitude. In other words, you must believe that you have, the “Midas Touch,” through your thinking and your actions.
Your behavior is also a major factor in helping you to create your future to move beyond your negative past. You can and you will always profit in life, based on your treatment, respect of and respect for yourself and others. Your attitude will dictate your behavior. Hence, your success in the future starts when you awake each morning, giving thanks first for life, for your blessings, and then for others. It starts each day with your positive greeting of life, and your greeting of others afterwards. A pleasant smile or any other greeting takes nothing away from you, but it does open the doors for many possibilities in the present and in the future. You set the tone for how much more successful your future will be than was your past. Because others exhibit unpleasantries, it doesn't mean that you must join them.
You might have all the material wealth, all the physical niceties that life can afford you, but it doesn't guarantee you anything for tomorrow, unless you possess and show a daily positive attitude. It will help you to create the type of future you want and need. You must possess an attitude and behaviors for a successful future while not forgetting how you got to where you are. You must also remember those persons who are and were instrumental in helping you to get to where you are in the present. In other words, you can't forget the bridges that brought you across. This means your family, your friends, your colleagues, your mate, your children, your neighbors, and the list goes on and on. The same people you met going up, you will eventually meet going down. However, it doesn't mean that you must hold on to the mess associated with any persons, situations, or circumstances that formed your past, prohibiting you from moving successfully into your future. You are truly the author and the creator of how your future will be and how it can be.
To successfully move into your future, you must be self-directed. You must strive to create a future that you can dictate, as well as one that you have the power and the authority to orchestrate. You must have some idea as to where you are going from today forward, while leaving your past behind. There must be goals with specific action plans as to how you will get to where you're trying to get to in the future. Your goals must be realistic, attainable, and measurable. You must see your past as the rearview mirror of your automobile, which is small because it is designed to view those things behind you. You will have to leave your past behind, only remembering those aspects that will allow you to venture into your future. You will have to see your future as large as the windshield of your car, for you to eventually behold all that God has in store for you. You should want to see everything that is available for you to accomplish the goals you set for your future, unobstructed and without barriers. As the driver of a car, you are keenly aware that there are writings on your sideview mirrors that state, ‘caution, things in this mirror are closer than they seem.’ Therefore, along with your self-direction, your goals, and your specific action steps, it’s also important that you remember to develop a contingency plan, just in case.
It is important to leave your past behind, only gathering and carrying with you those aspects of your life necessary for you to attain success in the future you create. Even in your future, there will always be obstacles looming around on each side of you, as well as in front and behind you, as you move through life. Once again, these obstacles will become your past as you create another aspect of your future. However, it is imperative that as you look through the windshield of your life and become more observant of the sideview mirrors that warn and caution you of maladies, problems, and other obstructive situations that can get in your way, you are prepared to pull over to the side of life's roads. You must not be afraid to move into a new and different direction or a different life lane, as you place as many of those obstructive situations behind you, in your trunk of life. Sometimes you must be willing to use the trunk of your life to place those unnecessary and unexpected blockers and other negative situations in the trunk of your car and lock them away, allowing you to lighten your load.
As you create your future, leaving your past behind, it dictates that you must have faith. For every disappointment, you must pray to keep your faith in a higher power, recognizing that the sunshine always comes after the rain. Your faith allows you to continue to believe that when one door closes, you will most certainly find another door. And if there are no doors, you will find a window. As sure as there was a way into any situation or any circumstance in your past, there was a way out, allowing you to create a new way into your future. Your self-direction and self-determination allowed you a path beyond your past, indicating that no matter how thorny the paths have been in your life, no matter how winding the roads have been, no matter how many closed roads and detours you encountered, and no matter how dismal the outlook, remembering to never give up was always important in helping you to move beyond your past, while creating your future.
Nothing ever happens unless and until you make it happen. You must decide to step out of your past and begin to move into the future by engaging in the steps shared with you above. You must believe that you deserve a positive and success future, as you behold and envision your future in your mind, in your heart, and in your spirit. Use your goals and action plans to map out your strategy and your specific action steps. Sitting and ‘waiting on God’ to create your future is not the answer to you moving beyond your past. In all actuality, God is waiting for you to initiate the steps for your future success. You must also be optimistic about the outcome of your future. You must have positive optimism. Some of you believe that you are optimistic, but you don't totally believe things can and will get better in your life. This line of thinking and believing is negative optimism; you are optimistic about positive things not happening. As a result, what you believe is what you will receive! You are casting doubt on the outcome of your future. And if you cast doubt on the outcome, you are then shutting out any actions you will take, as well as any possible gains for your future. Your beliefs determine your actions, and the ensuing consequences. Your gains for the future are predicated on how successful you view your past, how successful you feel in the present, and it's knowing that you are okay, just because you are you and you were put here for a purpose. Your purpose in life was not for you to be a failure in your past, your present, and it most certainly wasn't for you to be a failure in your future. You can’t change your past, but you CAN create your future!
Starting today, begin to see your future as a blank canvas, where you are the artist. You can choose the type of brushes you use, the colors you will use, as well as the type and consistency of the paint you will use, to paint your future on your blank canvas of life. You can choose short or long strokes, thin or broad strokes. Every brush stroke is an indication of the action you will take in putting your past behind you, putting your goals into action, and creating the success of your future!
Key Points to Remember as You Create Your Future
· Anything I aspire to do starts and ends with me
· My attitude determines my latitude
· How I start my journey into the future will determine which roads I take and the outcomes of my journey
· I must give myself and others
· I must love myself
· I must have a win-win attitude
· I must keep looking up because the sky is the limit
· I must align myself with “PPPGs” (Positive People Going Places
· I must have self-determination
· I must make written goals with specific action steps
· I must keep the faith
· Have a contingency plan
· I must believe that I CAN
· I must start speaking my future TODAY!
I challenge each of you to let go of the negative pains and negative experiences of your past; they have truly passed and are behind you. You can't do anything about what has already occurred and what has happened in your life, but you can work on what is and you can prepare to design and create what will be in your future. You must begin to look up to stand up, to believe in yourself and to decide that the sky is the limit. No matter your age, no matter what has taken place in your past, it is never too late to leave the negativity in the rearview mirror of your life and embark on the positivity of the future that is waiting for you in your windshield of life!
I challenge you to challenge yourself to be all that you can be, to take risks end stare life straight in its face. There's only one time around and that time is now! Take it, shape it, and make it be your time, so that you will be prepared for tomorrow, whenever it comes, which happens to be today! You must begin to nurture your future and the success of your future where it starts and where it will end, right inside of you! You are your present and the outgrowth of your past. You are the success of your future! Get started today, start moving forward today, start creating your future today, because you can't change your past!
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