You Can’t Start the Next Chapter…

I’m sure anyone reading the title to this article would be able to finish it without having to read it but I’m going to give it to you here now anyway!

You can’t start the next chapter if you keep re-reading the last one.

Oh my, how true is this?!

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I can tell you that I have so many people coming to see me, who question their current state of their life. Everyone in this state, will question why it is that they aren’t moving forward. They just don’t understand. But when we start to explore where they are and what their current behaviours are – what their thought processes are and how they feel about themselves, it immediately becomes so obvious why.

I have to tell you too that the only moment you have in your life is now. The past is gone and the future has not yet happened. This is just absolute basic general common sense, yet as Dr Phil always says, common sense isn’t really that common!

We believe that it is our past that defines us, that defines who we are. And to some extent that’s true. However, you cannot use that as an excuse for where you are. You cannot use it as an excuse for why you can’t move forward.

Keeping yourself locked in the past is so counter-productive to your life. It really is like reading the same chapter of a book over and over. A great example of ground hog day. But the problem is, that we don’t even realise how much we’re keeping ourselves locked into the past. We don’t realise how much we say, I can’t because of what has happened. I can’t let go of how he made me feel. I can’t let go of how disappointed I am in my mother. I can’t let go of how that person’s bad decision changed my life. I can’t let go of how I feel. Do you get what I’m making reference to. It’s those things that we tell ourselves about what has happened to us in our past, that we think give us a hall pass – a legitimate excuse for our own shortcomings. A legitimate excuse for not being in control of our own lives.

I think we’re all really just lazy and so for the most part, it’s just easier to stay stuck in the past. We fear the future. We fear what is to come. Because, what if what is to come is great? Golly me and oh my giddy aunt? A fate worse than death?!

Fear, people! Fear is the biggest stumbling block that we place on the road ahead or the potential road ahead. Can you just imagine if your life was better than it is now?

And I’m saying to you – yes, please DO imagine what your life would be if it was better. What would that feel like? Where would you be? What would you be doing? Goodness help you if you were to find yourself actually enjoying your life! What would you have to complain about? What would you have in common with others who keep themselves locked in their past?

But do you want to be associated with those people who walk alongside you and participate in your static and stagnant state of being? Or do you want to associate yourself with those people who go out into the world understanding that they need to let go of the past and that the future is a blessing that they hold in their own hands? I know I want to be!

Don’t allow yourself to consistently be reading the last chapter or the last few chapters of your life. Spend your time working out what the next chapter is going to look like and what you’re going to do to be the only author of that chapter. Only take along co-authors if what they’re going to write into your chapter is greatness! And please, never forget that you can’t start the next chapter if you keep re-reading the last one!

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