When did you last blame something that happened years ago for how this week is going?
I think I could do it. There was a tough run early on when I started wearing glasses at 5 and also did dancing. A conman who besmirched me until his true self was deported from our shores.
All true. All real. All excuses.
But at some point, the past stops being an explanation and becomes an excuse.
That's the line that stood out for me in something I read recently: after a certain age, you're no longer the product of your environment or how you were raised. It's a personal choice to live the way you do.
You might not love reading that the first time. It might feel like it lets everyone else off the hook- the kids, the parents, the bosses, the bad luck, and put the weight back on you.
But that's exactly the point.
Your past explains where you started. It doesn't get a vote in where you're headed.
No one can tell you what you can do tomorrow based on what you’ve done today.
I think about people who are still, twenty or thirty years on, running the same story. The difficult family. The unfair break. The industry that never gave them a shot. Some of it's true. None of it is still doing any work for them.
The ones who've actually moved, built something new, made peace with something old, become someone different, all did one thing.
They stopped waiting for the past to apologise and started deciding what came next.
Healing isn't something that happens to you. Nobody hands it over as compensation for what you went through.
Growth is the same. Nobody hands it to you at a milestone birthday either.
Both are decisions. Yours, made today, regardless of what came before.
This Week's Motivator
Your history explains your starting point.
It doesn't own your next move.
Healing is your job.
Growth is your decision.
Prompt for the Week
What am I still blaming for where I am today, that's stopped being an explanation and become an excuse?
This week, I'm going to stop waiting for it to resolve, and make one decision that moves me forward anyway.