The future can be created from the future, instead of the past π€―
I heard these wise words from Steve Chandler a while ago.
For the longest time, I was living in a default future, one that was being created from the past.
My past used to hold deep meaning about who I thought I was and what I believed. So any step I took into the future, was with a cautious glance back to the past to make sure I was doing the βrightβ thing and taking the βrightβ next step.
The past I had created was tinged with:
βIβm not good enough to quit my job and find something else.β
βIβm crap at relationships and I feel insecure.β
βIβm afraid to speak up and be heard because what if I get it all
wrong.β
Coming from the past to create my future meant that I was limiting myself.
Believing these thoughts and creating based on them was like only buying lettuce to put in my fridge and one day opening it and hoping to find avocados (side note: I love avocados!)
I was hoping to have a different future whilst creating it based on past thoughts and beliefs.
I was living into a default future which led me into a state of severe anxiety and depression.
THAT was the wake-up call. The abrupt slap in the face, blaring alarm clock that shook me awake painfully.
The word βpastβ by definition means βgone by in time and no longer existing.β
Since then, I have realised that the past is just that.
Over.
It took me time to drop the meaning I had about the past and to stop working on it, reframing it, and trying to create new meaning for what happened then.
All of this work was so exhausting, never ending and ephemeral.
I was done playing in the past.
Instead, I began focusing my attention on actively creating the future FROM the future.
This means creating the future from infinite possibilities.
Because I know what got me here, wonβt get me where Iβm going next.
If the past didnβt exist, what would I like to create?
I LOVE this question because the answer lies in imagination, vision and creativity. But never in the past.
