A Reminder to Myself

Hello again,

I am sorry this TOL is so late.  Please remember you can get this TOL in three ways; reading, watching or listening.  The video and the audio versions are available as a free download either directly or via our podcast. You will find the RSS feeds at either:  http://thoughtsonleadership.biz/video for the video version or http://thoughtsonleadership.biz/audio for the audio version. Now for the content you have been waiting for:

A Reminder to Myself

I have two Granddaughters and recently I decided to write a little book entitled, Thoughts for my Grandchildren.  It is just some thoughts I wanted to share with them that may help them growing up.

One of them was,

The past is over… make peace with it and move on. You can’t always change the past… but you can always create the future

I want you to consider this as well.  Sometimes we get blocked by the past.  Something that happened that leaves us in a frame of mind and limits us and holds us back.  Sometimes it is a belief about the past, a feeling about something in the past or an emotion that the past stirs up in us.

Many times we can’t even remember what happened in detail.  Maybe it is an employee or relative that did something, and you can’t remember precisely what it was but you are still holding a grudge about it.  Worse than that, your memory has expanded the issue and made it bigger than it really was.

If there is someone that you feel that way about, ask yourself… “Is it still worth it?  Is it still valid?  Does it matter anymore?”

So my challenge for you THIS YEAR is to ask yourself, where is the opportunities to bury the past and create the future?  And I want you to do it at two levels… in your personal life and in your business life.  Both are often connected and so both should be considered.

Think about someone in particular that you don’t get on with or have had difficulties with and consider if it is still worth it.  Instead of trying to relive the past, fix the past or get over the past, ask yourself how you can define the future?  What matters is what we have learnt and what we are going to do in the future.

So this year I am asking you to consider doing this in all areas of your life.  I want you to challenge yourself to focus on creating the future and getting rid of some of the blockages in the past, especially if 2009 was a difficult year for you.

I hope 2010 has started well and I wish you all the best.

By the way, if you have any really useful thoughts that I could add to my little book to my Grandchildren, then please send them to me.  Either leave a comment or email me at paul@paulbridle.com.  I may even include them in the book and credit you for them.

I would also like to announce a new project that we have started.  It is called ‘The Bridle Report’ and is available here.  It is FREE and consists of interview clips from my travels with top executives.  All of these videos are taken from my BE INSPIRED DVD series over at The Leadership Lounge.  Please go and check out The Bridle Report and give us some feedback.

Best wishes

Paul Bridle