Moving Forward

“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”  -- David Livingstone

As is my habit at the year’s end, I tell all my readers of the importance of setting goals and having a clear vision for the year to come.  I believe in goal setting because I know it can change lives and help you to achieve your dreams like no other tool.  Not just thinking of goals, but writing them down, developing a plan of action and putting that plan into action.

Not long ago I read a newsletter from David Allen, author of the book, Getting Things Done and developer of the GTD plan.  I am a big fan of Mr. Allen and have found his work extremely useful and life changing.  In this newsletter he talked of the importance of purging your mind at the end of the year.  Cleaning out all the useless stuff that we allow to clutter our heads.  He made a statement that really hit home for me.  “Sometimes the greatest gain in productive energy,” he said, “will come from cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with old business, and cleaning the decks.”

This got me to thinking.  As I am planning for what I will achieve in the coming year; why not make a list of those things that I will not take into the New Year?  Things like worries that I can do nothing about, negative experiences or hurts that I suffered in the past year, unforgiveness or bad attitudes that somehow crept into my life.  It is all stuff that will hold me back, has held me back before, and I do not need it.  David Allen also said, “Remember, you’re the one who creates speed, because you’re the one who allows stuff to enter your life.”

Here is what I did.  I made a list of all the things I wanted to leave behind.  Not all were bad things, but they were not moving me forward.  This had to be an actual list.  There is great value in writing things down.  It brings clarity to what you are trying to say and do.  It makes it real and tangible so you can relate to it.  One of the reasons we carry around negative thoughts and feelings is that we cannot touch them to get rid of them.  If you have a stone in your shoe, you stop and take the stone out; but with thoughts the stone never seems to leave unless you make it leave.

Keeping a written list also gives you the ability to look at it from time to time and be sure you have not taken anything back.  You see it on the list and you know you have left it behind and will not worry about it again.  The decision to remove it from your life has been made.  You do not make that decision each time; you only manage the decision at that point.

“Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.” – Jim Rohn

A key part of moving forward is to understand the proper place for the past in your life.  I love history and look forward to times I can spend in museums and at historical sites.  I have always found the past as a wonderful learning ground.  I am not, however, one who wishes to return to it.  When I worked at The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich., people would tour the historic homes in Greenfield Village and say, “Oh, I wish I could go back and live in that time.”  The romance of the décor and quaint objects gave them a feeling of simplicity and comfort.  Reality was there was a reason people grew older faster and died at thirty.  Life was hard and very often unpleasant.

The past is what we learn from, and then apply its lessons so we can live a better, more successful life.  President Ronald Reagan said, “While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live in the future.”  It breaks down into a simple formula: learn from the past, to take action in the present and make a great future.

The most important lessons we learn from the past are not from history but from our own experience.  Your past has brought you to where you are today.  Learn from it and you will have a more successful tomorrow.  “I’ve come to believe.” Tony Robbins said, “that all my past failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.”  Learn from the past then allow it to move on, never try to live there, whether good or bad, it is gone and you can never go back and it will never be changed.

So what is the reason for this exercise of leaving things behind as you go into a new year?  It is so you can fully and positively move forward.  It is to get rid of all the excess weight and clutter so you can take on every opportunity and adventure that comes your way.  I always loved Walt Disney’s perspectives.  He said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Past worries and negative thoughts and feelings are the enemy of curiosity.  They are the things that tell you not to risk, that there is something or someone against you, and you cannot win.  By leaving those worries on the scrap heap of life, you are free to explore, to open new doors and to do what that which your heart has always dreamed.  Take time and read a biography on Walt Disney. You will discover that if he allowed all the negative experiences and problems in his life to slow him down, there would have never been a Disneyland.  His curiosity was stronger than his past.  Is yours?

The time has come for you to do more than set goals and plans for the New Year.  You now have to allow yourself to pursue them and to rid yourself from anything that would stand in your way.  You know you want this to be so.  All success-minded people strive to move forward.  Most people really desire to leave the past behind.  Rev. Joel Osteen observed, “People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave the past behind.”

“Sometimes the past seems too big for the present to hold.” – Chuck Palahniuk

The New Year is just that, a new year.  It is your opportunity to go after your dream to be all that God has made you to be, to move forward at full pace.  You cannot do that dragging the useless stuff of the past with you.  Free yourself from the old burdens and let them go.  I promise you that you will not die or suffer loss.  You may need to slap your hands now and then for trying to pick one of them up again, but that will pass in time.

Allow me to close with one more statement from David Allen.  I believe it will help you to see clearly what you need to do and take the action to get it done.  “Must of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do.  It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.”

© Jack Hickey 2010