3 Reasons Why You Can’t Hate Your Past

Yes that’s me. This was a few days after my 2nd hip had been replaced and it was one of the worst seasons of my life.

After suffering from terrible pain for 3 years, I had both my hips replaced in my 30s. My physical therapy was to walk 1000ft to my mailbox every day. The goal was to get there without crying or crumbling into a puddle of sadness. Every step felt like fresh hell and tears flowed. I pulled myself together — if that’s what we wanna call it — long enough to take this picture.

I don’t like this photo. I don’t like the little ipod, the outfit or any of it. However, everything in this photo helped to get me where I am today. You would not be reading these words, if I didn’t have this experience or wear that dress. I felt stuck with a life that would never bring me joy. But I’ve learned that pain can be fuel, I decided to have even the slightest hope combined with imperfect action to keep healing. Of course, instead of physical therapy I wish this was picture of me on Lake Como in a banging black bikini with big hat celebrating my birthday on a yacht. Obviously, it is not because this was taken in Phoenix. However, I’ve learned that hating where you’ve been in your personal growth journey is an act of betrayal. I want you to stop betraying yourself. Where you were, gave you fuel for today. You are literally using that fuel to move through life now and you don’t need to be ashamed. I’ll share 3 of the key things I did to help me stop hating my past.

Without the picture above I would not have this picture below.

3 Reasons Why You Should Stop Hating Your Past.

1. Comparison is boring and basic. There I said it. You have completely different dna, life experiences, fingerprints, brain waves and thinking patterns from whoever you’re comparing yourself to. Their life is not your life. Their hips are not your hips. Comparing your history to their history is useless and basic. Social media may make you think the people you have on pedestals have made no mistakes, but I’m here to tell you that is a lie. Comparison is also boring, because it’s an easy way to betray yourself and spend your days wishing you had someone else’s life. They are not better, they have their own pain that you don’t even see.
2. There are lessons in the messy stuff. Where you’ve been can be fuel for where you’re going. Without the horrible experience with my hips and that little ipod (which was loaded with Lil Wayne hits and Kings of Leon jams) I would not be at that finish line in the marathon picture. I needed the girl with the horrible brown dress to get to the marathon and I can’t hate her. She gave me fuel to become a cycle instructor. Yes, I did that. The lessons from overcoming this horrible embarrassing season of my life gave me a level of confidence that I‘m constantly using. I even learned lessons on how to go for it and stop feeling stuck that led me to adopt my daughter. From all that pain I decided there had to be some joy left in life.
3. There are others out there who will connect with you. You’re not alone. Find your people. Look for a community on Facebook, not a weird cult though, get a group people who grow and acknowledge their mistakes. Join a Mastermind or connect with a group of people who are doing what you want to do so you can learn first hand that people make mistakes and have imperfect lives and still go on to do wonderful things.

I hope these 3 tips will help you to get a better perspective so that you can get unstuck.

I’m still making mistakes and still learning from them and I hope you will too. Check out my Team Meeting Podcast where we talk about failure and how it fuels us.