Focusing on Where We Have Been

With the ending of one year and the beginning of another, it is certain that you’ve noticed the avalanche of the year’s “best” and “worst” lists. They are everywhere, from newspapers and magazines to television shows – even the financial pages. While it’s fun to look back and reminisce, let’s talk a little bit about a more productive way of looking at where we are.

In these daily messages, you have read about the need for purposefully setting goals for ourselves, in order to unlock the energy and creativity inside each of us. When we set a goal, we cause a “gap” for ourselves – between the way things are and the way we want them to be. It is in our nature to want to close that gap. A primary job of our creative subconscious mind is to keep us like we know we are. Setting a goal changes how we “know we are.” We must close the gap to maintain our sanity.

In order to close that gap, to make the outside picture match the inside picture of who we know we are, our creative subconscious turns on enough energy and creativity to make it happen. We either get drive and ideas to move toward what we want in the future, or ideas and drive to stay where we are. Herein lies the danger of spending too much time looking back at the past.

You see, human beings are picture oriented and we move toward the strongest picture. Our natural tendency is to maintain our current idea (picture) of who we are. In order to change, we need to make that future picture (goal) stronger and more attractive than the one that shows us staying put. By constantly reminding ourselves of our past, we lock onto the old picture and lose the drive to move forward.

Give a little thought to this today and this evening, and we will take another step tomorrow.