Live Your Best Life - Put Your Past in the Past

Whether you realize it or not, every day you are living the story of your life…

Imagine you are holding a large book in your hands. There is a golden bookmark in the center of the book. You put your fingers on the bookmark and open to that page. It is completely blank - a fresh new page, and it represents where you are today.

You then flip back in the book to the pages before the bookmark. They are filled up with all the events and circumstances from your birth until now. Everything that has happened in your life up to today is part of your story. It is already written. You can’t go back and change this part of your story (even if you want to). But you can learn from it and use the lessons to create the next chapter of your life with more intention.

Today’s blog addresses a problem that many high achieving entrepreneurs face today. No matter how many positive experiences you have had in your life, there is often a nagging issue from the past that holds you back from true freedom to live the life of joy and significance that you desire.

So, let me ask you this:

Is it possible that you are missing out on your best life because of the pain of your past?

If so, read on. Because to truly live your best life you need to put your past in the past.

Your Past Can Get in the Way of Your Best Future

To create the future you desire begins with looking back. At one of my Leadership Mastermind meetings, I led our group of entrepreneurs through a Decade Reflection.

Here is a summary of the exercise: Think of your life as a timeline – taking decade by decade and looking at all the significant events in your life up to today and how they have shaped you.

You can do this whatever age you are – 20, 40, 60, or 80. Think about, and reflect on the significant events of your life. Many of them will be happy things – your graduation from high school or college; getting your first career job; achieving a business milestone; your wedding day; the birth of a child, or a grandchild.

But then, inevitably there will be events that are also part of your story that are unhappy. Something happens you didn’t expect. Your story takes an unexpected turn - and it completely throws you.

Perhaps your parents got divorced; you lost someone you love; found yourself in an unhealthy or abusive relationship; became estranged from a family member; or dealt with a serious illness. Even the Pandemic is now considered a significant traumatic event.

Let’s face it – these last two years have been traumatic. Mental health issues are on the rise. The United States has seen a twofold increase in anxiety, depression, and hope about the future since the pandemic.

The problem with this is – if you have faced something traumatic in your life, it can derail you. Traumatic events and challenges can make you want to hunker down, to freeze, to wait.

If you don’t deal with the pain of your challenges – if you ignore it, if you stuff it down, if you allow it to make you bitter…. it can keep you from your best future – the abundant life you have been called to.

When Your Story Takes an Unexpected Turn

You can have a really great plan for your life, but then sometimes your story takes an unexpected turn….

This happened to me.

On a Monday morning in 2003, I left for work expecting a typical day in my busy life as an entrepreneur and Mom. I didn’t know then it would become a pivotal day, one now forever engrained in my memory.

As founder of a growing facility management business, I had several meetings that day. It was a full and productive day in the fast pace I had grown to love, but as the hour approached 6 p.m., I was ready to get home to my family.

Arriving at my house, I pulled into our driveway and shut off the car, grabbed my bag from the back seat, and headed into the house. Used to the mayhem when I got home the house seemed unusually quiet, but I didn’t think much of it. Not seeing the kids or my husband, I went into the office and dropped off my work bag. I then saw my two youngest daughters through the office window playing out on the swings in the back yard. They were four and seven years old at the time.

I thought to myself, “That’s strange, I wonder where their dad is?”

I walked out the office door and down our patio steps to the back yard and went over to my daughters. As soon as they saw me, they ran up and threw their arms around me. After our usual hellos, I asked them, “Girls, where is your dad?” That’s when my seven-year-old somberly looked at me and said, “Daddy isn’t here. He left with a suitcase.”

It felt like my stomach dropped out, as I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Without notice, without any warning, my husband had abandoned our family.

My world had just broken in pieces.

What Lies are You Telling Yourself

On the day when my story took its unexpected turn, I didn’t want to face the reality that what I had dreaded for years had actually happened.

I knew that I needed to pull myself together for my girls, and I did the best I could. I moved forward, but wow, did I face some challenging and hopeless days. Life moves forward but there will be days where it seems you are hit on all sides and feel completely overwhelmed.

In those moments, it’s easy to buy in to lies about yourself and your life. I found myself thinking:

• This chapter will define you
• Everyone will judge you
• You will always be alone
• Your family, your kids won’t possibly be o.k.
• You can’t do this

But I knew this wasn’t “right thinking.” It wasn’t who I wanted to be for myself or for my family.

If you have felt this way, overwhelmed by the circumstances of your life, you are not alone. It is easy to buy into the lie that you have been through something too hard to move on from. You really start to believe that you can’t overcome your past. And that no one else gets what you’ve been through.

When you take the time to dig deeper to the underlying cause of it – you will see that it is really fear that is holding you back.

The Truth: You Have a Choice

In time, I came to the clear realization that I had a choice to make for my future.

I could let this terrible situation completely derail me or choose a different perspective. Even though I had been knocked down, I could get back up, put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

The truth is: You do not need to fall victim to circumstances and difficulties that will invariably come your way. Instead, with the right perspective, these times can be teachers and instrumental to your growth.

I made the decision to take back my life. You can do it too.

But it’s not easy. It requires first making a choice. You must realize and accept that this particular chapter is just that – a chapter in your story.

Change Your Mind – Change Your Perspective

Imagine once more the book in your hands and the blank page before you. My friend, you can go forward from today and write a better story. Through the power of choice, you surrender the broken pieces of your story and let God redeem it. When you let go of the fierce grip on your pain, you are finally in a place you can move on.

Realizing this is incredibly freeing and empowering. Once you’ve made this discovery, you can then make the choice to move forward and do things differently.

How do you start? Decide to change your mind. When you change your perspective you begin changing your story.

In this life it’s not “if” you will face challenges, it’s when. Even though you can’t control the conditions around you, you can control yourself, your attitude, and your response.

You can choose a positive mindset and a perspective that leads you forward in the life of significance you are creating, versus one that holds you back.

If like me, you have faced a challenge that continues to trigger you, start with evaluating your current mindset and perspective.

Commit to speaking positive truths over the challenge:

• Your past is simply part of your story
• You are strong
• You are learning
• You are growing
• You are building something new

It’s a new day. Don’t let something from your past hold you back from your best future. Put your past in the past.

Are you ready to create the next chapter of your life with more intent?