You need only one strategy to finally create the future you desire. Stop recreating the past by believing what happened before will happen again.

Said another way, stop living in the past.

That’s it. Plain and simple. (Maybe not easy.)

Your Beliefs Recreate the Past

Whatever you believe, you create. However, most of your beliefs are based on past experiences. So, you keep recreating the past.

For example, you might believe you are bad at writing because your middle school teacher flunked you for an essay you wrote and said you were a lousy writer. You continue to perpetuate this belief many years later.

The result of continuing to believe you are a bad writer is that you don’t write, are afraid to share what you write, and have identified as a “bad writer.” Not only that, but you churn out bad writing if you do write or create situations where you are told your writing is not up to par.

In fact, your writing might have improved or your teacher might have been wrong. Or your writing might be good, but you refuse to recognize that fact. Also, you can choose to learn how to be a better writer—and believe you are a good writer—now.

When you believe you are a good writer—or have the possibility of becoming one—you will write, share your writing, and become a good writer (even if you weren’t one before). And you will get confirmation of this fact.

“Good writer” becomes your identity. Then, you create good writing.

You create this new desired reality—your desired future—by choosing to focus on a new belief instead of living from an old one.

Apply this example to anything, like the belief that you aren’t good at money because you went bankrupt, you aren’t able to sustain relationships because you got divorced, or you can’t hold down a job because you have been fired several times. If you continue believing these things about yourself, you will continue creating more reasons to believe them.

But change your beliefs, and everything starts to change.

Living Into My Desired Future

This past year, I realized I had to stop living from the belief that no one pays what I am asking for my programs and services. I believed that every launch would be a failure because, in the past, I’d not managed to enroll many new people to purchase or register for them.

As long as I believed that, I recreated the same scenario from my past. Despite my affirmations and attempts to convince myself I could get a different result from my marketing efforts, I just got the same results and disappointment.

In fact, I was expecting those results and to feel disappointed. I lived my past experience as I marketed my products, programs, and services. No wonder I created the same results and emotions.

The only way for me to create my desired future was to stop living in the past. I had to see myself differently—as a successful marketer. And I had to have the beliefs and habits of a successful marketer.

How did I do that? I decided to be a person who could create the future I desired. And that meant changing my beliefs and habits—especially my habitual ways of thinking, believing, feeling, and acting.

Your Habits Recreate the Past

Your habits also recreate your past, but habits are not only behaviors, like making coffee when you wake up each morning. You have habitual ways of behaving but also habitual ways of thinking and feeling.

It was my habit to think my launch would go poorly and that I would feel disappointed. I prepared myself to be disappointed the entire time I worked on the launch. I habitually felt resentful while doing the required tasks, which makes sense since I assumed they were for naught.

No wonder I recreated failed launch after failed launch.

The thoughts you think become beliefs. And these thoughts and beliefs wire your brain so you habitually think the thoughts, believe the beliefs, and feel the emotions that go with them.

Your Identity Recreates the Past

As I alluded to above, your identity also recreates your past. Whoever you believe you are, that’s who you will be. And that person has habitual thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.

However, your identity—and the thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors accompanying that identity—is likely based on the past. You became someone who isn’t good with money or relationships and can’t hold down a job because of your past experiences. You aren’t a good writer because what your teacher said programmed you to believe that’s who you are.

To create the future you desire, you have to be a person who can experience that future. Right now—in the present—decide to be that person. Then, your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors will align with that new identity.

When you are being the person who can create the future you desire, you will begin taking the actions to make that your reality. Those actions include creating new beliefs.

Leave the Past in the Past

You probably realize by now that it’s essential to leave the past in the past. The past no longer exists. So why continue being someone from your past?

You aren’t that person now; you’ve changed. And you can change again—and your beliefs will change, too.

Be someone right now whose beliefs support the creation of your desired future. Before you know it, you’ll live that future in the present.

Can you see how your beliefs prevent you from creating your desired future? Tell me in a comment below, and share this post with someone who might benefit from reading it.

Image courtesy of rdonar.