Letting Go Of The Past

I think one of the biggest problems that people have, including myself, is that we get “stuck in our ways”. I’m talking about more than just bad habits. We also have certain mindsets and worldviews that we’ve developed over years of conditioning and influence from outside sources like our parents, schools, the media, ect. Our perspective of life is largely a result of our past experiences, drawing from everything that we’ve seen and learned so far to formulate opinions and beliefs about what is possible.

Unfortunately, many of these opinions and beliefs can be limiting to us and prevent us from reaching our full potential. For example, if you grew up in the ghetto of South Central LA where more people were getting into drugs and gangs than getting into college, you would probably not think that your destiny would be much different. Being immersed in that environment would have a negative psychological effect that distracts your focus from seeing beyond the confines of the ghetto. On a larger scale, since there has never been a female president, most girls are part of a collective consciousness that thinks it’s impossible to become president. It was the same situation for African Americans until Barak Obama and now an entire nation’s mentality and belief of what’s possible is beginning to change.

One of my favorite quotes is “The past does not equal the future”. No matter what has happened previously in your life, do not let it limit the person that you are today and the actions that you take to create your destiny. We have the power to choose who we are in each and every moment. We can recreate ourselves and shed the weight of any negative characteristics that we’ve developed over time. It just takes an awareness of what those unwanted characteristics are, what we want to replace them with and a little bit of effort each day to make those changes.

So what limiting beliefs from your past are preventing you from being the person you really want to be and living the life you really want to live? Do you have something about your self that you say “oh that’s just the way I am, that’s the way I was brought up”? Don’t blame it on your parents or your neighborhood or your school. Take responsibility for you own life and start designing it how you want it to be. The possibilities are endless, you just need to identify what’s holding you back and choose to let it go.