Does Our Past Holds Clues For Our Future Success?

As I like to do I was watching a cooking show. The Italian chef was talking about how to bring Italian cuisine, was has a rich and long history, and bring it into the future. Then he said something that really made me think. He said, "We don't look at the past in a nostalgic way. We look at the past in a critical way; to get the best from the past so that we can bring it into the future."

What a great way to look at the past of our lives I thought. There are positive and negative ways to view our past. Put another way, there are empowering ways and disempowering ways. One way to look at our past is when we are reviewing and ruminating about all the bad stuff that happened, the dumb things we did or said, or all the mistakes we have made. Another way is to look at our past wishing for those days to return. Neither of these approaches are an empowering way to create a live of joy and happiness.

What the Italian chef was saying is to look at our past and take the best from our past, bring it forward and evolve it into our future. When I look at my past in a nostalgic way, I feel like I want those days to return, which, of course, they could never do. As much as I would like it, I will never be 39 years old again and my 20 year old daughter will never be 6 years old again. Remembering is good when it brings joy to your heart, but when it brings longing and pain, it isn't helping us.

When I look at the past in a critical way, looking for all the good things that have happened; all of the great times, all of the successes I've had over the years, not just to remember them, but to take the lessons learned whether it was a success or a failure and understand and learn from them. When I look at those events and think what was happening then? Why did that work so well? What steps did I take to make that happen? How would I handle that now? Then I can begin to create an action plan for future success.

So what we can learn from our past? Made a mistake? How would we handle it differently knowing what we know now? Were you part of a state champion sports team? How can you use that winning feeling, winning formula, or winning attitude into your life now?

An example from my life is when I was preparing for my first degree black belt test. One of the requirements was to break two concrete bricks with one hand in a single strike. I had broken many wooden boards over the years to get to this point but concrete is completely different. There was a very real chance that if done wrong, that I could break my hand, my wrist or both. In fact, just one month earlier, one of the students had done exactly that. They hit the concrete and the concrete won. They injured their hand and their wrist quite badly.

I was determined that I was going to break it on my first try. I had asked Grandmaster what I needed to do to prepare. He told me two things. First, use the correct technique. Second, I needed to toughen up my hand. He told me to strike a solid board 30 times a day for 30 - 45 days. So I practiced my form paying attention to the smallest detail and get that down. Then I found a solid board an hit it 100 times a day. If 30 times was good, then 100 would be better I thought.

So when It came time to break the concrete, I knew in the deepest part of me, that I had done everything that could possibly be done to be prepared. When I stepped up to break the concrete, I was super confident. I struck the concrete and it fell to the ground in many pieces. I had done it and I didn't hurt my hand. In fact I could barely feel it.

So using that example, the question I ask myself now is, "Where am I not putting in that amount of effort in my preparation of the tasks I currently have? Where am I putting in a half hearted effort and just hoping, instead of working diligently to ensure success? Where can I triple my efforts in order to increase the probability of success? This exercise revealed some great insights for me.

Now it's your turn. What can you take from your past and bring it into the future? What can you learn from your past successes and failures? What lessons are there waiting to be untapped? What is something from your past that if reviewed from a critical eye holds the answer to the problems you are facing today? Think about some of the success you've had in the past. If you were mentoring someone, what would you say you did that helped you create that success? Write down those steps and review them. Where in your life can you put that into practice more? Where can this winning formula from your past, create your future successes?