Move On Move Up

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from those mistakes.

Over the course of the past few weeks I have been determined to show how our past holds us down, and holds us back. For many of us that is true. We look at our personal shortcomings and then develop excuses that keep us from moving forward with our life. The problem is that many of us never move past the mistake, or the past person that we once were. We accept the past to a point that it dictates what and who we are forever.

How many times have you admired a particular job, position, or person in your life only to look at your past and bring up the things you have done, or not done? How many times have you thought to yourself, “I don’t have the education”? How many times have you decided to move forward in your life only to have your personal failures brought to light”? How often have you claimed to be content while only giving an excuse to not meet your fears head on?

I’m guilty. I have made mistake after mistake. I have wanted to tuck my tail between my legs like a scared puppy and run to a corner that looked safe.

The past really can hold us back, but only if we allow our personal mistakes, experiences, and the opinions of others to rule our lives. The past is just that, it is the past. It’s behind us. Our past is something that can only haunt us.

Don’t get me wrong, the choices you have made can and will govern your life, but only for a short while. You are a product of your decisions. This includes the decisions you make right now. This includes what you do with your mistakes. A person’s past and their mistakes should never be an anchor, but a tool that is used to shape something ugly into something beautiful.

In order to move forward and become productive we need to embrace the fact that we have made mistakes and then look at how we can learn from where we have been. How can we use a failed Church or business to build a productive one? How can take a derogatory comment that we personally made and use it to produce something positive? How can we take something that has shaped who we are for decades that use it to reshape us to something that we have only dreamt and imagined?

Instead of seeing how you have done something wrong, look at where you are in a different light. If you have tried to accomplish something, and have failed you haven’t necessarily failed, you have discovered a way in which NOT to do things. Now you have a guideline so to speak.

Maybe you are looking at a great job, but you don’t have the education or experience to obtain the career you’re after. Does that mean you should just quit. Absolutely not, that should be the encouragement you need to go to school again. Become a volunteer, and allow those doing what you dream of to become your mentors. If you don’t, you are doing nothing more than allowing your past to govern you.

Is it possible that you live in the small town you grew up in? Yes, people saw you crash and burn. There are eyewitnesses to your habits and embarrassing moments. Yes, there are people that will remember your drunken stupor, the time(s) you were arrested, or the skinning dipping. Someone will still remember you as being an idiot, a nerd, or a jerk. There are people that will remember who you were at one time, and they will continually bring up the bad points to keep you down. There are people that will remember your deepest darkest secrets.

The past is the past. Embrace what you have done. Laugh about the immaturity, and then show those around you how much you have changed. Let people see you as a success, not as a failure. I know that some of what you have done is terrible, and it is damaging, but you cannot, and will not take back what happened yesterday, or five minutes ago. You can only begin to live life in such a way that builds a positive reputation that destroys an ugly past.