All forms of learning depend on your ability to remember the past. If you think about it, many of the wise decisions you have made that have led to this very moment were based on remembering what worked or didn't work in the past. For instance, you might know your friend when they enter the room because you remember having interaction with them in the past. It's an issue when you start exploiting the past inefficiently because you believe the future cannot be changed.
It depends on how important the old customs are now; it's your job to decide whether they're beneficial or detrimental to your development. We must be clear about what has to be let go of when discussing letting go of the past and moving forward because the past benefits us at least as much as it does harm. How do we know which parts to let go of?
Five things you need to know about letting go
1. Subconsciously linking past and present experiences
Your mind labels an experience as important when it leaves an emotional imprint. When the experience is terrible, it triggers a terrified reaction that keeps you vigilant for any situations that conjure up this memory and guards you against further injury. Then, as you have new experiences, your mind tries to draw connections between them and the first one. However, depending on how emotionally connected you are to the first experience, this may result in a false matching pattern that will inevitably mislead you.
For instance, if a muscular man hurts you, you may find it difficult to trust any man with muscles. Similarly, if an old boss at work verbally upsets you, you may find it difficult to respect any new managers or other people in positions of authority.
These false matches occur when they respond negatively and with strong emotions to a particular experience. This all occurs subconsciously because you logically know that every man with muscles is a different person, but you respond emotionally as if they were all the same person who hurt you.
If you feel that you cannot overcome some previous experience, the reason is that your mind treats it as if it is still happening now. This means that it incorrectly matches patterns with today's experiments.
Here's a two-step solution that might help:
- Ask yourself, “What experience and associated feelings do my current feelings remind me of?” Dig deeper and be honest with yourself.
- Once you have identified the source of your current feelings, make a list of all the points in which your current circumstances differ from the past. This should include the places, people, and details that caused you pain and discomfort. Go over the differences over and over until you memorize them completely. This should help you realize and remember that circumstances have actually changed.
2. Your subconscious mind not realizing that your abilities have grown
The park’s security guards usually tie a large elephant's leg to a thin metal chain and then attach the other end to a small wooden post hammered into the ground. A huge elephant can easily break the chain, pull the post, and free itself with minimal effort, but that does not happen because the elephant never tries.
The world's most powerful wild animal, which can easily uproot a large tree as well as a small wooden post and flimsy chain, is defeated because, when it was young, its trainers used the same methods to train it, they tied it to a thin chain around its leg and tied the other end of the chain to a wooden post. The chain and the post were strong enough to restrain the young elephant. When it tried to move away, the metal chain kept it in place, and the baby elephant soon realized that it was not possible to try to escape, so it stopped trying.
When the elephant grows up, it sees the chain and the post and recalls what it was taught when it was younger, which is that it cannot escape from them. Naturally, this is no longer true, but it makes no difference because the limitations it faces today are the ones it creates for itself in terms of ideas and beliefs.
If you think about it, we are all like elephants; we are all endowed with great strength, and of course, we have chains and posts in the form of thoughts and beliefs that hold us back. Sometimes stemming from a childhood experience, an old failure, or something we were told when we were younger. We have to realize that the past is a learning experience, but we must also be willing to change what we have learned based on changing circumstances.
Here are two things to consider:
- If you suspect that you are currently living your life with the limiting beliefs you have gained in the past, remind yourself of what has changed now in terms of your circumstances and abilities.
- Review what you learned from past adversities that can help you now. Instead of simply regretting things, ask how they helped you grow. For example, perhaps your past taught you to be assertive, conscientious, empathetic, and self-reliant. So focus on what you gained rather than what you lost from negative past experiences.
3. Any kind of progress is uncomfortable at first
Nothing starts easy; everything is difficult in the beginning, and even waking up in the morning sometimes requires remarkable effort. But the beautiful thing about life is that the most difficult challenges are often rewarding and satisfying in the long run.
It is really difficult recruitment interviews that lead to great professional progress; the exchange of the first few awkward words in the first meetings leads to sustained friendships; and painful training paves the way for athletes to win gold medals. None of these successful results began with comfort or ease.
Many people are afraid of the unknown, prefer to do the least, and are unwilling to endure short-term pain for long-term gains. Don't be one of them. You know that growth and progress require discomfort, and every time you endure emotional, intellectual, and physical discomfort, you make progress.
In all walks of life, by committing to continuous, small, uncomfortable steps forward, you can overcome the greatest barrier to positive change, which is fear.
Remember that growth also starts with getting out of your comfort zone. It's not only necessary to accept the discomfort that comes with taking steps forward, but it is also necessary to abandon routine and comfortable attitudes from the past, sticking to the ways things prevented you from forming your current personality and developing it later.
4. Happiness is not limited to the past
It is always good to remember the wonderful times of the past, provided that their recollection is not a way of emphasizing how terrible the present is compared to them. If you start to live in the past so much that you ignore opportunities in the present, you have a problem. For example, if you don't even give a potential new friend a chance just because you think they'll never be able to be like an old friend, that's a big warning sign.
The idea that the past was perfect and filled with unending happiness is not a realistic assessment of reality. Comparing these idyllic memories with the present can make you think that the present can never be a happy place, which prevents you from appreciating the present and anticipating the future.
Here are two types of practices that may be helpful:
- To help you feel better about certain situations in the present, you can close your eyes, relax, and focus on a wonderful time from the past. Then, imagine yourself moving to the present with all those good feelings from the past. These things happened and are worth rejoicing in, and they can help you use positive points from the past rather than bemoaning their demise.
- Look for any way to convince yourself that the present is better than the past, no matter how small the difference, even if it is simply that you have learned from the past and are now able to make better decisions for the future.
The bottom line is that life must continue until the moment you die. If all you do every moment is think about the past, you stop living. So you must resist the misconception that the past was so perfect that the present cannot be appreciated at all.
5. The persistent inability to predict or have a firm handle on anything
You have to understand that nobody knows what's going to happen; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, but life always strikes a balance. Don't expect to receive everything you offer, be appreciated immediately for every effort you make, or be understood by everyone you meet.
There are things you don't want to happen but you have to accept; things you don't want to know but you have to learn; people and circumstances you can't live without but you have to let go of; and some things come into your life just to make you stronger, so you can move on without them.
While living and trying things, you must realize what works for you and what doesn’t, then give up what doesn't work when you know you should, not for pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because you’re not supposed to fit everything into your life. So close the door on the past, change your mindset, get rid of negative thoughts, and accept change so you can focus on the future. It's time to start a new phase of your life.
In Conclusion
Often, giving up is irrelevant to vulnerability; it requires strength. We are moving forward with our lives instead of giving up because we have finally realized our own worth.
So stop focusing on the negatives and everything that can go wrong and start thinking about what can happen as you want, and better yet, think about everything that is already good. Be grateful for the brightness of each new day that you live, the friends who became family, past dreams and goals achieved, and use this positive way of thinking to live a better life.
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