The 3 Places We Look...

We all have those spots...the places we look when the keys are missing or the remote can't be found.

The go to spot when we need to find that extra $0.27.

In life there are similar spots. I call them the 3 places we look.  Each of these spots hold incredible benefit for us, but if not careful each can hold you back.

BEHIND

Looking behind is a great tool to remind us where we have been, where we have come from and how far we have come.  It is a measuring stick of success.

You can only know how far you come by measuring it against where you've been.  This gives a clear sense of exactly how far in life you have come.

Yet looking behind can be like walking in quick sand.  It's full of remember whens, the good ole days and it will never be like that again.  It can become a mental trap to move forward.  Every "there will never be another" creates a mental mile marker that what is ahead of you can not compare to what is behind.

What's behind is behind and great reminder of the...

PRESENT

This moment is happening.  Now is now and will never happen again.  Whether your in the midst of the storm or life is pool side at the Ritz Carlton, it is happening.  Embrace the moment, stop and smell the proverbial (or actual) roses.

Too often we get caught on the bookends -- looking behind or ahead -- that the moment is lost.  So go ahead and YOLO it!  Because you really only do live once.

As modern day poet MACKLEMORE said,

Can we go back, this is the moment
Tonight is the night, we’ll fight 'til it’s overSo we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold usLike the ceiling can’t hold us


Embrace the here and now.  But don't live this moment captive to what's BEHIND and not satisfied because you are looking too far...

AHEAD

Benjamin Franklin said "A failure to plan is a plan to fail."  Looking ahead requires making plans and plans to achieve those plans.   Goals setting is key to success.  Having dreams and the desire to chase them is essential to living a fulfilled life.

Looking ahead is all about creating a plan for the future.  Understandably, life is going to throw you curve balls.  There are going to be moments that you will not be able to control the circumstances.  But have a clear destination picked out allows you realign your path and stay on track.  So looked ahead with expectation of great things.

Looking ahead can cause amnesia about where you have been and you are.  Don't let what is ahead of you hold you back from celebrating past success and winning in the moment you're in.

Oh and your keys are always in the last place you look. (That's because the last place you look is where you find them.)