What is the number one thing you could do today to accelerate your own professional development?
Today is the day you need to say goodbye to the past and hello to the future.
People in the grocery store who push their cart forward while looking backward make me nervous. People who live their lives that way do too. Right now, millions of people are thinking and talking about changes they need to make in their lives and careers as we get started in the new year. Unfortunately, many people are also expressing deep regret about the things they didn’t accomplish or that they gave up on in the previous year, such as commitments they made to themselves, they didn’t keep, promises they made to others they left unfulfilled, or goals that set they remain unattained. Some are disappointed in themselves for a lack of progress last year.
Some people get frustrated with time. They don’t manage themselves well in the context of time. Did you ever think about the prospect of no time? If there were no time left, everything would be fixed and unchangeable for all time. Everything you have done or didn’t do would be permanently in place from now on. How would you feel about that?
I have a suggestion for you: Rather than live in regret about what you didn’t do last year, make the decision to stop wallowing about the past, you can’t do anything about it now! However, you can be grateful that there’s still time remaining in your life to adjust and change. Be thankful that time continues to give you an opportunity to take advantage of this golden opportunity to make changes in your life and career! Take all your regrets for unfinished goals or unfulfilled dreams and make them permanently relegated to oblivion and leave them behind forever! Put all of them where they belong…. BEHIND YOU!
It may take you a little while to resist those thoughts as they will try to come back to you. Resist those thoughts and keep thinking future-oriented thoughts. Remember, say goodbye to the past and hello to the future! Always make your future more plentiful and opportunistic than your past. Your best days and years are straight ahead. Start thinking that your time is a gift to you, it’s a wonderful opportunity to change things. I have had the opportunity to re-invent myself at least three times in my life, when my thoughts wanted to believe my chances for success were finished. Never doubt that faith for good fortune and prosperity is something you can involve yourself in. It isn’t always easy, and it starts with your viewpoint.
You can do it! Put the old behind you and open yourself up to what’s in front of you in the days, weeks and months ahead. Don’t defer those dreams and desires you have put off in the past, it’s now time to reach forward for them and embrace the future you deserve!
As you begin this new year, have you taken the time to make a list of professional development goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months? If not, take some time to be positive about what you realistically believe is within your reach in the next 365 days. Write these things down, use the SMART model to refine them and then keep them in a place where you can read them and see them each day.
If you failed to accomplish your goals because you lacked commitment this past year, renew your mind and energy and re-commit to doing those things you may have let slide. Re-dedicate yourself to be a champion in these areas and lock those things up in the next year long period.
Are there any changes you need to make, such as toxic relationships or environments you need to remove from your life? Are some of these parts of the reason you have fallen short in the past? Free yourself accordingly and cut off those dead parts of your life, so you can spring forward into growth you are capable of doing.
“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one” -Brad Paisley
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