The past, present and future......

Hi All,

It has been a while since I have been able to seriously sit down and write on this blog, for various reasons (excuses!), but during the time that I have been attending to other things and coming back to writing, I have been able to have a period of reflection.

I am sitting on a train to London at 6am, with not much else to do than check my e-mails, listen to music and reflect on what can best be described as an amazing period of my life. I have completed 10k races in a PB, half marathons 35 minutes faster than my PB, managed an amazing team to a great performance above budget, seen close friends have kids, been on holiday, met some great people, lost weight, learnt so much, I have had the privilege of coaching students and jobseekers, I have seen my football team at Wembley, grown closer to a woman that never ceases to amaze me in all that she does (my wife in case there was any ambiguity!) and a whole host of other great moments that are shaping the human doing I am.

Now I am not saying these things to impress anyone, but this is actually a mental check list for me to remind me of all the things that I sometimes forget when I get lost in the self imposed pressure and strain that I put myself under to achieve. I have moments where I forget about what I have achieved in a short space of time and comparing that to where I have come from.

We all do it!!! There are three points along the time line of life that people live in....the past, the present and the future. The danger is that if we only live in one of these places then we can sometimes feel unfulfilled, resentful and pressured to achieve. Let’s have a look:

Living in the past

If you only live in the past we can actually start to bemoan our current reality as it’s not as good as the past. We have all heard people say, “well, it’s not as good as it used to be” or “I wish I was back there, that was a great time in my life”. If we only live in the past we don’t take action on the present and future. The past is a valuable tool to help us achieve our goals in the present and future. It is a reference point as to how you know you can live your life or how you don’t want to. The past reminds us of the pleasure and pain that we have experienced and helps us decide what action to take to get closer to where we are going to be. Remember there are two main motivators for anyone achieving anything and that’s the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.......if in your past you have experienced pain then you know you need to change something, if you have experienced pleasure you know you need to do more of what you were doing to get more!

Living in the present

There are some people in this world, possibly your world, that only like to live in the present.....why? Sometimes they don’t want to be disappointed with what could happen, sometimes the life they have in the present is so good that they don’t want it to end. Living only in the present can stunt your development and actually lead to longer term disenchantment with life. If you have not set goals and rise to the challenge of what you choose your future to hold you will never move forward.
“But I love my life the way it is now, why would I want to change it?” It’s a valid question, remember though, that for us to keep interested and focussed on life you don’t necessarily need to make massive changes, it can be smaller changes that have a bigger impact over a period of time. If you were to say that you are going to a 1% shift in your actions, thinking, goal setting each week that would seem to be very manageable, without actually being a huge change from the reality you have at the moment, but over the period of a year that’s actually a 52% change in your life (possibly not the best way to measure), but a 52% change is huge in any terms!! Small incremental shifts in the now make a positive impact on the future and yet a 1% change per week wouldn’t have that big an impact on your current position to make you feel uncomfortable, would it?

Living in the future

I believe that you need to live your present as if it is your future, i.e. your achievements have already happened and that you are happy and grateful that you have achieved. However, for those that only live in the future they can never move on from there actual reality without taking action. The future IS happening and it DOES affect your present, but not without taking action.

Remember the song, Things can only get better? It’s quite an uplifting song really, however what they should have written is Things can only get better, as long as you take action (possibly not as catchy as D:ream’s title eh?) Living in the future without taking action in your present and learning the lessons from the past will mean that the future picture that you have does not actually come into reality....which then becomes your negative present and then your negative past!

It’s amazing how each “time zone of your life” actually impacts the other. The key here is to use the future as your magnet to attract you to your life’s goals, your present to take positive inspired action towards your future and your past to shape the actions in the present. Remember, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain is a wonderful journey if you allow it to be and see your world as a playground of fantastic lessons and opportunity!

Have an awesome day!