Achieving Success Requires Us to Look Back as We Move Forward
As we venture into a new year, we usually initiate a concerted effort to make
changes in our lives aimed at helping us successfully move forward. We move to
turn things around; thinking positive thoughts and leaving our failures and
disappointments behind.
We look for new opportunities; strive to
change dreams into realities, develop plans for success, and envision a future
of joy and abundance that will allow us to weather any storm we encounter.
By
Jacqueline Walker
Achieving success requires us to Look Back as We Move Forward
But, as we embark on our newly defined journey to refresh, redeem and restore ourselves to live at the highest levels, we must be careful that in making a fresh start and wiping the slate clean, we don’t completely obliterate some of our past experiences, regardless of the memory tied to them – happy or sad.
Now, we should most definitely not dwell on our past failures and disappointments; however, we should not totally blot them from our memory. Within every experience we have in this life: good or bad, win or lose; there are life lessons that can serve to guide us and help us along the way.
So, as we work to implement our self-improvement techniques, we need to infuse our methodology with a healthy dose of look back, move forward!
Looking back on both our successes and our failures holds great merit.
Remembering our successes can provide a quick boost to our confidence and uplift our spirits as we forge ahead seeking to add to our achievements. Each activity or event that worked out for our good provides a template for defining additional gains.
Similarly, reviewing our failures can serve us well, because in many instances they remind us of what we shouldn’t do or of things, places or people to steer clear of in order to keep driving on the road that leads to success.
In looking back, the intent is not to spend time patting ourselves on the back for what we already accomplished or beating ourselves up about what we shouldn’t have done or what we could have done better.
After all, we’ve only just begun, tomorrow is a new day. A glorious future awaits and getting there requires wisdom, work and willpower. So, there is no time to bask in our past glories or sulk about bad choices and disappointing results.
Getting to an even brighter tomorrow demands that we not only dream about it and think about it; but, it demands that we take action to bring it to fruition. Looking back allows us to identify and select inputs to direct our path and define the best set of actions we need to take as we move forward!
Moving forward takes us on our journey and aims our steps squarely toward hope!
It is the sum of our actions pointing us to our greatly desired outcomes. To move forward, we must lay out our plans and chart the direction we will take. And, any plan for the future can be greatly bolstered by using information from the past.
This doesn’t mean blindly copying blueprints that were successful in the past. Also, it doesn’t mean wallowing in and getting discouraged by past bad actions, words, or agendas.
But, moving forward does mean evaluating each component of our previous wins to see how they can be utilized today, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that, etc.
We need to knead, shape and preserve the best that we have done (to date) and then season it with our experience, increased wisdom, softened hearts and deliberate will powers.
Likewise, moving forward does mean assessing the lessons learned from our times of failures, bad acts or bad words. We can and should let go of the actual failure, bad act or word. However, it is important that we hang onto the takeaway – maintain the information gleaned and insights gained.
This will serve us in our quest for success by helping us to define the best practices for our lives because it helps us to clearly recognize which of our past acts or deeds can work for our gain or result in our downfall.
As we look back but move forward, we develop our personal recipe for success.
By combining the key building blocks of these two ingredients:
Look back, move forward; we create a stock that gives us the foundation to produce a sweet-smelling, tasty, appetizing, and fulfilling nourishment that will feed our souls, supply our needs and give us the ability to continuously fill all of our storehouses.
So, as we move forward in this new year and season of our life, let’s remember that there is great value when we also look back.