How to ensure your future is greater than your past

How to ensure your future is greater than your pastHow to ensure your future is greater than your pastDan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, is known for sayingAlways make your future bigger than your past.Specifically, Sullivansaid,We remain young to the degree that our ambitions are greater than our memories.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraYou make your future bigger than your past bySurrounding yourself with people who remind you more of your future than your pastLetting go of past failuresLetting go of past successesFreeing yourself from attachments and relationships that only exist for fear of loss - relationships that once made sense but are now codependent and unhealthyAccepting your current situation for what it isBelieving your best work is ahead of youDont look to your past while creating your futureIm looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past. - Mike RoweLearn from your past. But dont look to it when creating your vision for your ideal future.Your past shouldnt dictate your future. Yet, when fruchtwein people create goals or plans, they immediately turn to their past and examine previous results or experiences.Patterns need leid persist.Let the past be what it was.Accept the present for what it is.Then decide where youll go and what youll become. Thats far more fascinating and interesting. And your future absolutely should be something entirely different from whats happened in the past. menschenwrdig beings can expand and evolve to the degree that detach from their past.What got you here wont get you thereIf youve been successful in the past, that success can be a suppressant to future success. In Essentialism, Greg McKeown saysSuccess can be a catalyst for failure.What got you here, wont get you there. The things that brought you where you are often the very things stopping you from reaching your next level.Your attachment to your prior success (or failure) and identity is keeping you stuck.Take the momentum and lessons from the past, sure. But dont live there. And certainly dont remain attached to THAT identity.Your personality is your relationship with yourselfAccording to Dr. Gabor Mat, your personality isntyou.Instead, your personality is an environmental adaptation. Your personality is how youre showing up in various contexts.Every relationshipis a personality.Your relationship with your body is a personalityYour relationship to your job is a personalityYour relationship with your past is a personalityYour relationship to your future is a personalityEach and every relationship you have with a different person is a personality - youre a different person in each relationship because the RELATIONSHIP is what creates meaning between you and the other peopleNone of these things areyou.Theyre how youre showing up. Personality isnt a permanent thing, as most Western thinkers believe. Its not something youre born and die with. Your personality is how you relate and act in various situations and to other people.Your personality isnt what shapes your behavior. Your behavior is what shapes your personality. Change your behavior, change your personality.The quality of your relationship is based on the quality of your behavior. Take a second to examine the different relationships you have. What are the behavioral patterns in those relationships?What would happen if you upgraded the behaviors?What would happen to the relationship if you saw it differently? Or showed up differently? Or raised your standards for what you expect in that relationship? Or if you become more transformation-focused and began giving more generously?According to Tony Robbins, you get in life what youre willing to tolerate. Your personality is a reflection of what youre willing to tolerate from yourself. Your other personalities are a reflection of what youre willing to tolerate in each of your other r elationships with other people and with other things.When you upgrade your behavior,you signal to yourself and those around you that you want more and better from the relationship. As you improve the quality of communication and exchange in the relationship, the personality of the relationship changes.Psychologists call this self-signaling - and its how you change your identity and relationships.You absolutely can destroy and transform old cycles. Joe Polish has said,You must be willing to destroy anything in your life that isnt excellent.Rather than sitting and watching TV with your lover, which may be the current personality of that relationship, why dont you do something more compelling?How about you give your lover a massage while listening to an inspiring or uplifting audio?What if you changed how you spoke to them, and expressed more love and affirmation and less criticism?When you change the language patterns, you change the relationship.When you change the behaviors, you ch ange the relationship.Personality doesnt shape behavior. Behavior shapes personality. Yet, the IDEA of the relationship or personality can become a prison - making you believe THIS IS HOW I AM OR WE ARE.Youre not bound by the current relationshipWhether with yourself or someone else, youre not bound by the current relationship you have. You absolutely can make a change. A dramatic change. A 180 degree change. Right now.It will likely feel uncomfortable to you - because you will be losing your attachment to your prior identity and relationship.But as Reyna Aburto has said, Our path is not about what we have done or where we have been it is about where we are going and what we are becoming,in unity.The in unity part of her statement is profound. Whether with yourself or another person, alignment is essential.Abraham Lincoln once said,Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.Herein lies the fundamental difference between productivity an d busyness.Being productive is about alignment and congruence. Its about doing the right thing. Its about being radically honest with yourself and everyone around you.True progresstoward the person you intend to be and the life you intend to have is synonymous withproductivity. Conversely, busyness is usually the opposite of being productive. Its about appearing to be moving - though without much regard for the direction youre going. As Ryan Holiday has said,This is a fundamental irony of most peoples lives. They dont quite know what they want to do with their lives. Yet they are very active.Often, people busy themselves in order to ESCAPE the clarity they need. Because clarity requires honesty. It requires a genuine examination of where you currently are. Clarity about where youre going and who youre becoming is essential to getting there.Stop what youre doing and get organizedGetting organized andconsciousof your present circumstances (e.g., your environment, finances, relationsh ips, purpose, and time) puts you in a position to build toward the future you want.The fastest way to move forward in life isnotdoing more. It starts withstoppingthe behaviors holding you back.If you want to get in shape, youll make more progress bystoppingyour negative behaviors thanstartinggood ones. So, before you start exercising, purge the junk food from your diet. Until you stop the damage, youll always be taking one step forward and one step backward.Before you focus on making more money, reduce your spending. Detach yourself fromneedingmore and become content with what you have. Until you do this, it doesnt matter how much money you make. Youll always spend what you have (or more).This is a matter of stewardship. Rather than wanting more, more, more, its key to take proper care of what you currently have.As Paul Arden said,Dont look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity.Organize yourself. Dial it in. Your life is a garden. What good is plantin g if you dont prepare the soil and remove the weeds?Why do most people stay stuck? They never organize.Prayer and meditation to reduce noiseI have so much to do today that Im going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done. Martin LutherIf youre not regularly taking time to get clear and organized, chances are youve gotten busy doing the wrong things.If youre not regularly getting clear, your future wont be bigger than your past. Instead, it will be alogical extension of your past. You wont be able to make conscious and radical upgrades.Discontinuous, not continuous jumps forward are what you want. Rather than linear growth, you want exponential growth.If you take some time every day to get clear, youll be stunned by the simplicity of what you actually need to DO is. Powerful progress isnt complex. It simply requires clarity of purpose then aggressive action.When you give yourself a good chunk of time in the morning to get clear, youll know where you should be focusing that day. Youll know who you need to reach out to and what you need to say.Taking the right steps and making the right communications is how you make enormous progress. Its how you change the trajectory and pattern of relationships.Working for one hour in a state of alignment and clarity is more productive than grinding away for days and weeks without clarity. Direction is everything. Continuing to move the wrong way is only taking you further from where you really want to go.Connecting with others in a state of alignment and clarity can move mountains quickly - while trying to force stuff to happen repels the most brilliant people and opportunities from your life.Imagine ? Do ? Be ?HaveYour behavior shapes your personality and your future.Your imagination and idealization of whatcould beshould shape your behavior in the present.What do you want?What could your future look like?How could you better show up in your love relationship?What could your finances lo ok like?What could your personality and character look like?What could your daily associations look like?What could your ideal day look like?Thats imagination.Most people dont even take the time to imagine a brilliant future. For others, the very act of dreaming stops them from achieving their dreams. Theyve played-it out in their mind with such intoxicating detail that they become satisfied enough, and deceive themselves into believing theyve actually done something.Imagination and clarity should be the direction. Aggressive action and bold behavior is what shapes your ideal reality.Behaviorchanges personality.Behaviorchanges relationships.Behaviorchanges your future.Clarity and imagination is what should guide behavior.What youDOdetermines what youllBEwhich determines what youllHAVE.Do ? Be ? HaveYour best popsong is still in youI once had the lucky opportunity to have dinner with Alice Cooper, the famous rock star. I asked him about his creative process and he told me something r eally interesting.He said,You have to believe your best work is ahead of you. If I believed my best song was already written, I wouldnt keep writing.Richard Paul Evans, the 38-timeNew York Times Bestsellingauthor, said something similar. He said that every time he sits down to write a book, he tries to create something better than hes ever done before.John Burke, the Emmy-nominated pianist once said that every time he begins a new project, he tries to do something hes never done before. Only by trying stuff beyond anything hes ever done is hes able to innovate and push his own creative boundaries. There are no boundaries. Only limitations on your imagination and behavior.Your best work is ahead of you.Dont worry about what youve done or what youve created in the past. Let go of it.Put it behind you.What are you going to do now?What are you creating now?Where are you going to go?Who are you going to be?ConclusionOur path is not about what we have done or where we have been it is abou t where we are going and what we are becoming, in unity. - Reyna AburtoIt doesnt matter where youve been.It doesnt matter what youve done - neither the good nor the bad.When youre contemplating your future, your past should have little to do with that creative and imaginative process.You can be free to imagine WHERE and WHO.Whereyou would like to go given your present (not past) desires and impressions.Whoyou would like to be based on the future you want to have.Your personality doesnt define you. Its simply an expression of your relationship with yourself and whats around you. You can change your personality completely.You can change how you show up in the world. And thats exactly what you need to do if your future is going to be bigger than your past.Every next level of your life will require a different version of you. What got you HERE wont be what gets you there.Where will you go?Who will you be?Are you going to be productive, or busy?Are you going to be clear and congruent, a nd thus effective?Is your best music still in you?This article first appeared on Medium.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people