Did you get anything for Christmas that you wanted to return?
What didn’t you like about this Christmas?
Did you spend too much money?
Were you stressed and anxious?
Did you wish you had handled things differently?
Whatever regrets you might have, the past is just a circumstance. You can’t change the past. The question is what do you want to think about the past, about that circumstance that you can’t change?
One option is “I’m grateful for what that experience taught me.” You can write it down (write down what the situation was, what you think went wrong, what went right) and, without judgment, evaluate what you can learn from it, what educational benefit the experience gave you (like a gift that keeps on giving) and move on.
Our past is only about events that have happened. Our past does not define who we are and it certainly does not define who we are becoming. Each day is a brand new opportunity to make decisions that drive us forward toward who we want to become and what we want to create in our life.
In a sense, each day is a do-over. We cannot do anything about yesterday, but we can control what we think in the present and we can believe in what we can become and create in the future.
I would love to show you how.
Twenty years ago, Jill Wright was in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Through focus and hard work, over the years she and her husband built a nest egg that allowed them to retire in 2018 at ages 50 and 53.