Brand new endings

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” — Carl Bard

As we continue this journey together, I hope you understand at this stage that it makes no difference where you’ve been in the past. What truly matters from this moment on is where you are going. So the obvious question is, do you know where you’re headed?

Inspired by the lyrics from the song “Unwritten” by Natsha Bedingfield, I know that the best is yet unwritten in my life. We have the the ability to start from now and make the ending whatever we desire.

What your future holds

“Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.” ?— Herb Brody

With the New Year just around the corner some people might be focusing their attention on what the future holds for them. Everyone has their own way of trying to figure out what will happen in the months to come — some go to psychics while others listen to Dr. Phil and think that the best determiner of future behavior is past behavior.

First I would like to recommend not living in the past at all. Live in the present moment. As Dr. Wayne W. Dyer suggests in Your Sacred Self, “Having a personal history keeps us from now. This is a radical idea perhaps, but I am asking you to consider the possibility of totally eradicating your personal history from your consciousness and simply living completely in the present moment.”

Then take it to the next step and try not to project into the future. Instead relax about the future and just let it go. Enjoy this day a little more knowing that this very moment is creating your life just as you want it.

Picture this…

“Nothing is more tragic than someone who has sight, but no vision.”
— Helen Keller

What is the vision of your future? If you were to project yourself into the future, say five years from now, on the current path you are heading, what do you see? Are you happy, are you living to your fullest potential?

Now, take this one step further. If you were to make some changes in your life that you have been contemplating but haven’t quite made the leap in that direction — see yourself in five years from that point with these changes influencing your path. What’s different? What’s better?

I had help projecting myself into the future and was pleased and motivated by the second level of being. If I were to leave my inhibitions behind and just go for it, what a difference it would make in my life, even five years down the road.

Sometimes even the most logical changes to be made are difficult to commit to since they are not immediately rewarded. Quitting smoking, losing weight, building a successful business, to name but a few goals, these take time and considerable effort to achieve and then maintain. A month or even a year down the road doesn’t necessarily mark the end of the goal or the complete rewards for your efforts. But five years, ten years, twenty years will definitely see the mark of these positive changes.

One day at a time

“The power to create quality of life is not in any planner. The power to create quality of life is within us, in our ability to develop and use our own inner-compass so that we can act with integrity in the moment of choice.”
— Stephen Covey

What will happen tomorrow? Or the next day? Or the next week, month, year? Other than some fairly predictable norms in my life, I wouldn’t be able to answer that with much detail or accuracy because I simply cannot know about something that has not yet happened. And what about all the things that are going to happen that I can’t even imagine at this present moment? How will they affect the equation when I didn’t put them into my calculations?

So why do we take up so much of our time thinking, or worse yet, worrying about the future when we have no way to know for certain what it will entail?

No matter how challenging your situation appears to you at this time, you can make it through one day at a time. Focus on the present day and moment and what action steps you can take right now. Understand that each conscious choice you make now will create the quality of life upon which you decide.

The Mighty You

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take all the energy you put into thinking about the past and all the energy that you put into wondering and worrying about the future, and put it all into your present self.

That wonderful, powerful, creative person you are can barely come out to see the daylight when you get lost in all the pasts and futures. Create your NOW and forget about the yesterdays and the tomorrows.

You, as you are right at this very moment, is far greater than anything you have been in the past or could be in the future. Don’t waste away your days spinning your wheels for a different time when this is the moment that counts.