With the ending of one year and the beginning of another, it’s certain that you’ve noticed the avalanche of last year’s “best” and “worst” reviews. They are everywhere, from newspapers and magazines to television shows – even the financial pages. While it’s fun to look back and reminisce, let’s talk a little bit about a more productive way of looking at where we are.

Since the new year begun, you have most likely read about the need for purposefully setting goals for ourselves, to unlock the energy and creativity within. What we can agree on is that by setting a goal, we cause a “gap” for ourselves – between the way things are and the way we want them to be. It is in our nature to want to close that gap. A primary job of our creative subconscious mind is to keep us the way we know ourselves to be. Setting a goal changes how we “know we are.” We must close the gap to maintain our sanity.

To close that gap, to make the outside picture match the inside picture of who we know we are, our creative subconscious turns on enough energy and creativity to make it happen. We either get drive and ideas to move toward what we want in the future or ideas and drive (resistance) to stay where we are. Herein lies the danger of spending too much time looking back at the past.

You see, we move toward the strongest picture, and our natural tendency is to maintain our current idea (picture) of who we are. To change, we need to make that future picture (goal) stronger and more attractive than staying put. By constantly reminding ourselves of our past, we lose the drive to move forward.

Think of your future now, eliminating the pull of the past, with the intention of shifting into the life you born to live.