Look Back to see your Future

“The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you’ve come.”- Bangtan Boys, Butterfly

We’re often told to never look back. To leave everything in the past. After all it’s the past, we can’t change a thing about it.

And yes, I do agree with this mostly, why worry and overthink about something that already happened. This is coming from a person that would think about past moments and waste time imagining what I could’ve would’ve should’ve done differently.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized just how important acknowledging growth is.

In such a fast paced world, it’s hard to even remember what happened the previous week. Let alone a year ago.

Acknowledging growth is something that you must do with intention. It isn’t something that you can always be like “Oh yeah, that’s cool”.

Because sure, that works sometimes, but it doesn’t bring the same deep realizations and epiphanies that true dedicated time can.

You might be asking, man… How on earth do I do this?

Well, I’ll give you all the tips on how I manage to acknowledge growth without falling back into the past. Also look out for the special discount later in this newsletter.👀

1. Start Documenting

Documenting is SO much more important than you’ll ever realize.

It’s funny, because I grew up as the kid that constantly asked my parents why we had to take so many photos, at every event.

To me it was just like any other day. A day a part of my childhood.

But now looking back, I’m grateful for every photo and video that I felt was just a nuisance in my day.

I look back now and am grateful. I look back now and laugh. I look back now and man… I can’t ever believe I thought that low taper fade ever looked good.

But seriously, photos and videos are such a good way of documenting your life. And if that isn’t for you, then I’d recommend journaling.

Journaling is a form of documenting that feels extremely personal.

It probably feels this way because you never have to say or do anything that others can notice. You can freely express yourself without the fear of outward judgement.

And if that isn’t enough to convince you, just think about how long journaling has been used as a source of documentation. Anne Frank’s diary, which is a famous peace of holocaust memoir, is still something talked about to this day.

2. Look Back

Now time for the most important step

Looking back.

What’s the point of documenting something if you never look back?

I want you to think about this way. Imagine you’re an artist that makes beautiful paintings, even DaVinci has nothing on you.

But

You NEVER look at your paintings. You just make them. And yeah, it’s absolutely amazing that you make them, but man think about how much you could learn from yourself if you just looked back a bit.

And to the small percentage of you that think it’s some super deep surreal thing to never look back at your paintings, more power to you. But for most, I truly believe it would help as an artist to look back.

Now when we relate it back to life, you can get the gist that there’s so much to learn from our own lives. So much you’ve gone through, losses and wins. Both are crucial to learn from.

Another important part of looking back is to simply see how far you’ve come.

If you work out, you understand how amazing it is to see past photos of yourself. When you look at yourself today in comparison, you think “Wow I can’t believe I used to look like that” or better yet “If I got this far, think about how much further I can get if I just stay consistent”

Looking back can provide so much motivation and inspiration for the next part of your life.

I myself find it as an important thing to do every once in a while, which brings me into my last and final point.

3. Don’t fall back into the past

There’s a danger with looking back.

You can fall back into past mistakes and memories that are better left in the past.

This is something that I personally struggled with a lot as a kid and even young teen.

But after making falling into that same trap many times, I finally realized that it’s important to dedicate a specific amount of time to looking back.

And no, I don’t necessarily mean to set a timer. I mean set a distinct time to look back. Either every 3 months, 4 months, 6 months, or whatever works best for you.

I personally look back every 12 weeks because I work according to the 12 Week Year system, which you can get my Notion template for right here.

Enjoy a New Years 33% discount on it, using this code C2MTIZMW. It’s just my way of saying thank you for reading the newsletter. It’s valid until Friday January 10 2025, so be sure to use it quickly.

And yeah, it’s that simple. Nothing too complex, just understand that the past is the past and all you can do is learn from it and go forward.

Purpose over Pleasure🌱

P.S Leave a reply and tell me what you thought of this newsletter. I’d love to hear feedback and what could be improved🙏🏽 Also don’t forget that if you go and click read online at the top of this newsletter you can comment and like to further engage with the community.

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