Stop Your Dwelling

“I don’t remember any mistakes, only the opportunity to overcome problems.” — James Sorenson

Hi Persuader,

If I had only known. . . I shoulda, woulda, coulda. . . Hindsight is 20/20.

Sometimes we dwell in the past, dwell on mistakes. . . I think if I had only known that gold was going to increase in value so much, I would have invested more. If I had known in the early ‘90s that there were a few tiny startup internet companies that would soon become Amazon, Google, Yahoo, I would have bought up stock like crazy. If only I could have seen into a magic crystal ball the way the housing market was going to shake out. . .

Are these lines of thought useful or helpful? Not really. We don’t have time machines. We can’t go back and fix our mistakes or take advantage of amazing opportunities that weren’t realized at the time.

Mistakes, missed opportunities, things we should have said, should have done — these are landmines to achieving success. As I’ve said before, what you focus on, you’ll get more of. Focusing on the mistakes only gets you caught up in mistakes. Even framing these things as mistakes or problems instead of opportunities to grow and learn, speaks to the way we set up our universes, our road maps in life.

I love overcoming adversity. I love realizing I’ve made incredible progress on this journey. These things are so much more apparent for me because I’ve made a conscious decision to chart out my goals and challenges from what I want for the new year, a five year plan, and in ultimate life goals, seeing tangible evidence of this progress.

I have a friend who likes to say what you focus on, you will grow. When you take away focus, ignore the thing and give it no attention, it will go away. She likes to use the example of a pimple. What’s the quickest way to get rid of a pimple? It’s not to play with it and fret about it. The quickest way is to absolutely ignore it.

This isn’t to suggest that we become apathetic about the important things in life that need to be changed. If there’s an issue that’s important to you — say it’s a neighborhood or community issue regarding the building of an eyesore which no one except the developer wants built. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Focusing on the negative will not make it go away. Proactively becoming involved and engaging in the process from a positive place is the best course. And what if you fail? Well, you don’t have to regret not having taken action. And you don’t have to dwell on the negative. You have only to remember that you did everything you could and worked your hardest on something that was important to you.

My suggestion and something I’ve been exploring powerfully is the idea of living in the moment. Look for more soon on how liberating living in the moment is in all areas of life.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland