Who you were is not who you are

Life is one massive self-fulling prophecy and the stories we tell about ourselves almost always come true. So let’s tell stories that empower us!

Today I want to help you break the cycle of looking into your past for clues for how to behave in the present. My mission today is to help you start believing in the person you are and aspire to be.

To help you to develop the ability to build on who you are today, rather than always looking to the past for reference is vital to your development.

How to stop making the same mistakes:

When we always look into the past for clues of how to behave in the present, we create a litany of similar behaviours. That’s not to say that all past behaviours are unhelpful, but too often both the good and negative repeat.

So you get trapped repeating the same mistakes.

A wise man once said, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is madness” 

When faced with a challenge, have you ever found yourself searching your past for clues as to whether you could overcome this obstacle in the present?

I hear things like this all the time.

I have tried to eat a nutritious diet, but I always slip back into bad habits.

When I am faced with too much uncertainty, I always get totally overwhelmed and anxious.

I always crumble under pressure.

There is no way I could give up alcohol, I can’t even last a week.

Exercise and I, don’t get on, I always fail….

I don’t have the courage to start a new business.

I am too old to retrain.

I got a C in English at school I could never write a book… 

I have made almost all of the limiting statements above at one point in the past. 

But then I got really good at building myself from where was today, looking forward to the person I wanted to become.

For years I told the story that I was a drinker. It was just who I was. It did not matter that my health was suffering, it did not matter that I was overweight, unfit, unhealthy, unmotivated and unhappy. This was my story and I was sticking to it. 

When I finally wanted to change this identity, I found it incredibly hard. Because I, along with too many others, had fallen into the trap and believed who was, is who would be. 

I was changing. 

I no longer wanted to be that person. I wanted to find my authentic-self that was buried under a larger than life character. But it was so hard because I kept looking back for reference of how I should behave in the present. And other people also found it hard to accept the change and wanted me to go back to how I acted before, which makes change even harder.

But then I realised I was living an old worn-out story that no longer served me. So it was time to STOP. 

To find out who I really was, and wanted to be to tell a new story.

What’s amazing is that, within less than 6 months, all those people who I believed would never accept the new healthy, introverted, calmer version of me, suddenly changed. It was so quick it was almost unbelievable. 

Within just a matter of months, I had gone from being widely known as the ‘party-boy, big drinking, broker’ to a health guru! It was as if everyone had totally forgotten my past and was now fully embracing my new story.

So you can do it, you can make the most dramatic changes and start to tell a different story that you and everyone else will believe.

So let me ask you a this -  is it time you told a different story?

Too many people get trapped always looking back. I am sure you know lots of people right now, who are living their lives on an endless loop of the same mistakes and limiting beliefs that are holding them back and making them unhappy?

But you’re different. 

Even having the courage to read this far shows me that you are thinking differently and ready to start building from who you are looking forward.

Here’s the kicker - Your past story of mistakes and limiting beliefs will keep repeating in the present unless you make a conscious choice to take charge of the stories you tell.

And you can change in an instant. 

Now, this does not mean the behaviour is magically changed in an instant - but you making that choice can change your story instantly. And then to start living it now. 

Even if it takes a few weeks or months for your actions to catch up.  

Your mission is to write a fresh story starting from today looking forward, and then to live it.

You will be amazed at the results.

This is what I would like you to do.

Write down who you are today, and who you want to become. But list everything in the present tense.

For example, if you want to finally become that person that exercises every day.

You might say.

Today I am someone who knows how important exercise is to my life.

Today I am someone who feels so energised after exercise

Today I am someone who makes sure to move their body every day

Then keep telling this story over and over until you believe it in your core.

 ‘Let’s do this!’