What do you see when you look back over your shoulder? Will seeing this benefit you or will it be detrimental? How can you turn looking backwards into a positive for you?
I don’t know about you, but I always know that I am on the right track when I lose interest in looking back to see where I have been. I take this as a sign that I am focused with eyes forward and that I am bringing with me the lessons I have learned from any deliciously messy mistakes I may have made in the past. I am grateful that these lessons inform my current goals and aspirations and that they will comfort and sustain me when I make even more delicious mistakes into the future.
We all have failures or mistakes in our past – an hour ago, last week, last month, last century. Success comes from pausing for long enough to examine these mistakes, from valuing the lessons they bring and from moving past your failure into a brighter future. When you are unable to do this you can get stuck – stuck hanging on to the past, stuck wishing you had done things differently, stuck walking up and down on the same spot as you look back over your shoulder.
What you will see when you look back is your mistake or failure, right there in glorious technicolour for all to see. News flash – you may be the only person who thinks it was a mistake and you are almost certainly the only person who it matters to right this minute.
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Whenever you take that slow sneaky peek back over your shoulder it inhibits you, preventing you from getting a smooth rhythm of life going as you move confidently into your future. It breaks your rhythm. It puts you off your goal. It takes your focus from the positive things you want to achieve today, right now. It’s like taking a backwards step. You are reminded of failure instead of success.
To move confidently past your mistake, put it into perspective. Failure is not forever, it happens to everyone and it is a great opportunity to learn. Improvements are based on the lessons that you can learn from failure, so examine your mistake to see what you can learn from it so that you can determine what you can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen the same way again.
Once you know what needs to be changed to achieve the outcome you are looking for, set yourself a target. From there break it down into actions that you can do regularly. Daily actions are best. These actions become your steps away from the failure and no matter how small they are every single one should be celebrated – because you are making focused progress. You have stopped letting your past determine your future.
When you feel stuck and a bit uncertain about whether or not you are making progress towards your goals and aspirations, taking a longer relaxed and confident peek back at where you have come from can really benefit you. Why? Because it will confirm for you that although it feels as though nothing much is happening, looking back will show you just how far you have come. Once that is confirmed you can get on with the celebrations – every achievement no matter how small! Every single day!
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One weird thing about failure is that it can paralyse you – without you even having the experience of failing at something, your fear of failure can totally hold you back from the very thing that you are craving – making a new friend, attending an event by yourself, moving to another city or taking the bold step of establishing your own business. I know that it is easier to stick with the same old thing and to take few risks however if you are not willing to fail than you are standing in the way of your own success. So………get out of your own way, get comfortable with failure and your chances of achieving the successes you want will rise.
I love this Henry Ford quote about failure.
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
Something else to remember about looking back is this – Sometimes when we look back over our shoulders we see someone that we care about, perhaps that we love, struggling with an aspect of their life and of course this creates a tension for you. You must ask yourself – Should I keep my focus or will I go back and pick them up? How many times have I already been back to pick them up? What will happen if I don’t go back and get them?
I challenge you to keep your future focus forward, however small the steps, and to hold out an arm to this person to encourage, offer support and motivate forward movement. I challenge you to maintain your rhythm and, should your offer of support be declined, to accept that each of us is on an individual journey and we are all travelling at our own speed.
Finally, I challenge you to use this experience to accept the lessons that are there for you and to promise yourself that you will only ever take sneaky peeks back over your shoulder to see just how far you have come and to celebrate this progress.
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Following these tips will help you to put any mistakes or failures into perspective, motivating you to keep going and give things another try. Setting a target and breaking that down into daily actions will build your skills which will contribute to your feeling of achievement. When you do look back at where you have come from it will be easier to identify the growth and the achievements you have made because you will have looked for the lessons and applied these to keep your momentum going and to keep you on track towards your targets.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post on Get Absolute Value From Looking Back Over Your Shoulders With These Tips. Remember to leave a comment below and subscribe to my YouTube channel to receive the latest life and business tips straight to your inbox!