SELF IMPROVEMENT

How Your Better Present Can Shape Your Perfect Future

Break your chains and escape your hauntings

Our past is part of our identity. Past experiences, relationships, and beliefs make us what we are today.

There are problems in life that are like insidious poisoning.

Problems that you wake up with every morning and go back to sleep with at night. In the stupidest case, these things not only besiege your head as your mind is always on them but are also constantly draining your energy day by day because you have associated negative feelings with them.

Such problems wear you down. They change you, little by little. Until there is someday you wonder how the hell you get so negative, frustrated, jaded, bitter. These problems are like creeping poisoning which can steal a lot of your energy. They haunt your subconscious and always keep a small part of your mental brainpower busy. Such problems are the so-called "open loops". You haven’t completely let go of something inwardly and now it constantly haunts you.

On the other hand, it’s so easy to live in your past. Following up on experiences is always easier than making new ones. The truth of course is that our past is anything but easy in itself. Rather, it is our very personal, emotional baggage.

And this ballast looks different for everyone. Some mourn a past love. Others wish to go back to a time with less responsibility and still, others wish they could speak again to a loved one who is no longer with them. Some get so lost in the wish that one could say they live in the past. They do not dare to let go or do not know where to get the strength from to set off for new shores.

Our lifespan is limited. Anyone who keeps lingering in the past misses out on new things. Deciding to let your past go, you also decide to step out of your passivity and continue to live actively. So ask yourself: is it worth mourning the past?

There is no point in thinking about painful memories over and over again. This is a waste of time and it only takes a significant quantity of your valuable life energy away. It’s better to become aware of your open loops of the past and then to specifically close and forget about them. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Such kind of loops are:

• an argument that you had and that is still raging on your head
• mistakes that you made and regretted or made you feel bad
• someone else did something that makes you upset
• a wish that things were different from what they are
• anger about something someone else did to you
• frustration with how things have turned out so far
• stories about things that happened that make you feel sad, depressed, hurt, or angry

Sometimes you have the illusion that by just not thinking of them you’re making progress. In fact, nothing can change unless you consciously take action. Being stuck on old memories has never advanced anyone.

That’s because you think of them over and over again, waste a lot of time and still get nowhere.

The open loops are still there despite all your mental effort and continue to haunt you day after day in your subconscious.

All these loops that are always haunting you, harm your perspective and drain your energy.

So, what you should do? You have to become aware of your open loops and then close them once and for all. It’s time to do it and you have to do it now!

Letting go

Letting the past go implies giving up part of our identity and opening up to new experiences. And that is exactly what many people are not ready for.

In the face of their fear of the unknown, they prefer to live their old stories instead of developing and having new experiences. They cling to their past like a fearful child to their mother on their first day at school.

Instead of growing from their experiences, learning from them, and having new experiences, they keep telling each other how painful their last relationship was. They’d rather suffer from their old stories than plunge into the unknown and gain new experiences.

Open up to change

To let the past go, you have to accept that you are not a rigid being, but that you are in constant evolution. Just as life changes, so do you. And the more you fight against these changes, the more you suffer.

It’s like a computer. There is a new operating system every few years. The new system has fixed (or at least tries to) old bugs and adapts to the latest developments.

At first, you probably miss the old and familiar operating system. But after a few days, you get used to the new system and recognize its advantages. However, if you are not ready to familiarize yourself with the new system, you’ll be stuck in your old one until, at some point, it’s no longer compatible with anything.

It’s the same as your past. Not letting this go is like still using Windows 95 because you don’t want to familiarize yourself with a new operating system.

Open up to new things. Be ready to have new experiences, let go of your old beliefs, and develop yourself further. The world is constantly changing. Don’t shut yourself up against it.

Now let’s see what exactly will help you with this.

1. Change the story

The truth is, you don’t suffer because of your past.

You suffer because of the story you keep telling yourself about your past.

What is done has been done and it can’t hurt you anymore. The only thing that hurts you now is this frustrating story. Through this story, you put yourself in the role of victim. You sink into self-pity. You always have a reason for being miserable.

But you can change that story and tell yourself a different one.

You can tell yourself that you learned a lot from that experience and that you are stronger now. Through this, you will find new courage and new strength to move on.

You can’t change what happened. But you can change how you perceive it.

2. What do you learn from the past?

Imagine you invested all your money in stocks 3 years ago. The company was a blast at that time, and there was a forecast that shares would skyrocket. But now, 3 years later, the stocks hit rock bottom and all your money is gone.

Now comes the hard part! Your partner is blaming you. Your friends wonder how could you have been so stupid to put all your money on one horse. You ended up making a big mistake.

If you don’t learn from this mistake, it will haunt you for a very long time after. From now on you will probably see everything through your “I can’t handle my money and I’m a damn stupid” glasses.

But what if you can learn something from it? Suddenly your mistake becomes something very useful.

• You can use this mistake to get smarter financially and to learn more about finance.
• You realize that while money is important, you end up getting by with less than you thought.
• Talking openly with your partner about it and admitting that you made a big mistake will fix any broken links in your relationship.

It is much easier to let our past go as long as we learn something from it because that exact moment a mistake, a failure, or a painful experience becomes something very valuable and useful.

3. Don’t distort the past

A large number of studies have impressively shown how incomplete our memory is. For example, we remember our past in only certain details. Our memories also change over time. The longer since an event occurred, the less we can remember it.

Our memory is therefore a very subjective and often a distorted view of our past.

As a result, we often glorify or vilify it. Thus we believe that everything was better or terrible. And this distorted view keeps us from letting our past go.

Let’s take, for example, those who have been abandoned by their partners. The first few months after their breakup, they glorify their past. They tend to remember their ex-partner and the time they spent together as something beautiful and dreamy. They keep telling themselves that their ex-partner was perfect and that they were just happy back then.

But of course, that’s not the whole truth. Not everything was as pink as they are telling themselves. There were also some bad moments. There were arguments. And certainly, there were a lot of things that annoyed their ex-partner. Ultimately, that relationship was far from perfect. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have broken.

It is noticeable that we tend to distort the past not only positively but also negatively.

Many people keep telling themselves how terrible their childhood was and how much they suffered.

But the same applies here; not everything was always bad. No doubt, there were also happy moments and experiences in their childhood. They just don’t remember them. Or they chose not to…

To let your past go, you should try to look at it a little more objectively.

4. Choose a better future

Your life is the result of your previous decisions, actions, and experiences. There is nothing you can do about it. What is done has been done.

But that doesn’t mean that it has to continue like this. Many people make a big mistake believing that their past also determines their future. Wrong!

Your past affects who you are, but it doesn’t control who will you be.

You can learn new skills and develop new habits. You can move, change your job or find a new partner. You can drop limiting beliefs and let your old pain go. Don’t let your past rule your life. Choose to work on your future and start changing things.

Letting the past go is not always easy. The death of a loved one, a job loss, a major failure, or a breakup is often a very painful experience. But you can learn to deal better with these setbacks and to look ahead.

Often people don’t let their past go because they don’t focus on their future.

They have nothing new to look forward to, nothing to work towards. They have no plans, no goals, no hope.

That’s why older people live constantly in their old memories. Because rarely does something new happen in their lives.

But as long as you don’t look ahead, you look back even more. The less you focus on your future, the more you hold onto your past.

So if you want to let your past go, it is extremely important to focus on something new. Take your future into your own hands. Forge plans. Find meaningful goals. Learn from your mistakes. Face your fears.

Your past doesn’t determine your future. They are your decisions that do.

Your past is an important part of your identity. But you shouldn’t give it too much power over you.

• Just because you haven’t been able to succeed in something doesn’t mean you won’t be in the future.
• Just because you have suffered so far doesn’t mean you will have to suffer in the future.
• Just because you haven’t done something before doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do it in the future.

Learn from your past and remember all the beautiful moments you’ve lived. But don’t let your past control your life. The past is over. But you always have the opportunity to set the course and change your life.

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Below is a great article from Alejandro Betancourt on self-love