Hey, my friend what is up and welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big, I am pumped to have you here once again, really appreciate it. Today's episode is going to be all about talking about why you should stop living in the past and why we need to start living in the future. So let's start off here with a quote by Alan Watts. And he said, if you're on a boat, and you're steering your boat, if you look behind you, what are you going to see, you're going to see the wake of the boat, and the wake of the boat shows you where you've been. But the wake of the boat does not steer the boat at all. All it does is show you simply where you have been. And one of the things that I see happen that holds people back a lot is living in their past. You know, it makes sense, right? But what it's really doing is holding you back, we want to be able to predict our future. And the easiest way to predict our future is to look at what we've already been through and use that as a prediction of what your future might look like. Now the problem with that is, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you're probably someone who doesn't want your future to look like your past, you want it to be better, you want to improve it. But if you're living in your past, you're going to make your future look a lot like what you're currently living in right now. So let's go back and think about the boat, quote, rhymes boat, quote.
Have you been living your life looking at the wake of the boat, and letting that steer the direction of your future? Has that been where your focus has been? Listen, the main function of the brain is to keep you alive. And the best way that it can do that is if it can predict the future. So it will do literally whatever it needs to do to protect you and keep you safe. It will do what it needs to do to avoid any kind of injury or harm. So let me give you a real life example here for a second. And let me show you how this works and how our brain works. So my husband had gone away for work. This was when we were living back in Massachusetts, I think this was about maybe it was like six years ago, five or six years ago, we were still living in Massachusetts, and he had to fly down to Miami for work. And when he got here, he took an Uber to the hotel. And Uber got into an awful, horrendous car accident. Like to the point where he's lucky that he was alive. You know, he had to go to the hospital, he had all these slipped discs and all these back problems going forward after that, and it was absolutely horrendous. And it was so scary. And so because that happened, it sent a signal to my brain that riding in Uber isn't safe. So from that day going forward, anytime that I needed transportation, I would avoid Ubers like the plague, I would pay top dollar. I don't care what I paid for a, you know, private, you know, limo or whatever was another private driver, I would just do whatever I could do not get into an Uber. Because that was my brain, trying to keep me safe and protect me. And obviously, since then, I mean, there have been a few times where I've had to ride in an Uber. And I literally can physically feel it causing me like internal stress and anxiety. But this is how the brain is designed. That's what it's designed to do. So the brain takes your past and tries to throw it into your future so that you can try to predict your future and avoid pain. The brain is really incredible. It's amazing at trying to keep you alive like 100% but it's absolutely freaking terrible at trying to help you create the life you want to live. It's terrible for wanting to build a successful business or our life, it's terrible to try to get you out of your comfort zone because your brain is predicting fear, predicting fear, predicting fear. And what happens with a lot of us is, we live in the energy of our past. And I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of crap in my past, that I don't want to happen again. You know, I've lost people I've loved. I've had many, many miscarriages, I was made fun of a lot in school, had people who I assumed would be my biggest supporters not support me. And honestly, I just don't want to relive any of that. And so if I live in the energy of the past, I will then create that in my future, I will create more of that in my future, or I just won't take any action, because then I'll just be in too much fear.
So I want to ask you this question. Do you know yourself? Do you feel like you really know yourself, because knowing yourself is based off of your past, knowing is just having knowledge and the knowledge that you have came from experiences from your past. So I want you to stop knowing yourself and instead, start learning yourself learning yourself is based off of the present. And that's where we want to live, we want to get out of the past and into the present in the future. So we need to start to use our mind to create a future that we actually want. And this is where being intentional really comes into play. Being as intentional as possible, you can become really intentional. Or you can let your brain predict your future from your past. Or you can be in charge of your future by doing visualization. And I know that that sounds kind of like oh, yeah, visualization.
Please give me a break. That doesn't even work. But I'm telling you, it works. It is really powerful. It's crazy how this works. But it's extremely powerful. And when you visualize your future, you decide what you want your future to look like. And you get so focused on your future, that your brain won't go to the past. Because what's really awesome, is that your brain literally doesn't know the difference between something that is physically happening in reality, and something that is visualized. How cool is that? That is unbelievable. The most incredible thing about us as humans is that we can predict ourselves into a future by imagining a future. And we can feel those feelings right now in this present moment, good or bad. But all too often, we are imagining a future that looks exactly like our past. So if I have a failed business in the past, for example. And then I'm trying to create a new business, and I keep thinking about how broke I was, or how we had no money in our savings account, or we how we had tons of debt or all these things. And if I kept telling myself, yeah, well, all those things happen because your business failed, and went nowhere, you'll physically be able to feel that in that present moment, the anxiety and the worry, and the fear and the stress, you will feel that anxiety of that from your past. And then that's when you start to think, well, then this is stupid. Why would I start another business? What if that happens again? So it will either stop you from starting that new business or from putting the effort into the business. Because why would you put 100% effort into it, if you didn't really believe it was going to work, you wouldn't, right?
I talk to people all the time about business and earning money online. Mostly moms who want to be able to stay home with their kids, because they don't want to miss the moments or because they just want an additional stream of income so that they can help support the family. And I cannot tell you how many times people say to me, oh my gosh, I would love to learn how to earn money online. But I already tried XYZ before, and it didn't work for me, or I couldn't figure it out. So this probably won't work either. And then they literally don't even try. And it's because they're looking to their past as evidence of what they're capable of doing now, or in the future. So we want to get away from that. Now, when I'm talking about this here I am specifically talking about, you know, looking to your past when things didn't work out as a way to predict your future because you can also look to your past and see good things. Sure, you can see the good things that you've accomplished or done and you can use that to predict your future. And that's great. You know, for example, I started my first business almost 10 years ago now I didn't know darn things about business. I didn't know anything about social media. I was starting a health and fitness business. I was super out of shape and 40 pounds overweight. But I was able to go on and build a successful business, a six-figure business in under a year. And I look back at that and think, damn, you did it. If you did that, and you were able to do that then I can definitely do bigger and better with this new thing. I know I'll figure it out. I know if I have to start at the bottom. And if I had to do it all over again. I know I could do it again in the end, when we're looking back at our past, the things that didn't work out to predict our future, it's really just a subconscious self-sabotage that we end up in.
So, what future are you imagining, really think about it for a second. Because whatever future you're imagining, you're going to feel in this moment. So we can't just go into the future, and like, hope things magically work out. That's not how it works, we need to get really intentional about it. First, you got to get really clear on what it is that you even want. What do you want? Do you know what you want, get so clear on every single detail of the future that you're trying to create, write it all down. And then the next thing you need to do is to make sure that you set aside time every single day to visualize the future that you want. Now, I personally do this every single night before I go to bed because that's what works for me. You know, what does it look like to have that future? What does it feel like? And you literally place yourself into that future that you want, instead of allowing your brand to predict a future that's based off of your past, you have to learn to stop living in your past and start paying more attention to the future that you want. And being intentional about it. So let the feeling of excitement of that future drive you to the actions that you need to take. Most people like familiarity. They like comfort. They like what they know, even if they're miserable, even if they know it's not really what they want. Let's just be honest, right? And this is why a lot of people go back to the past and refer back to the past. So can you make yourself feel familiar? Maybe with your future? That's what we need to do. Can you make it seem so real, that you can feel it? Can you be more familiar with your future than your past? Because your past only happened once that time that your business or relationship failed? It's over. But what happens is sometimes we accidentally visualize that past into our future.
So what if we could visualize the future that we want to happen every single morning? What if we could do that? Because the past is it's just stored as a memory in your brain. So if you go to bed tonight, for example, and you visualize that new future that you want, guess what? That visualization will also be stored as a new memory in your brain. Because again, remember, the brain doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy or visualization. So if you can visualize this amazing, thriving business or loving relationship, for example, and you do it every single day, for the next 30 days, yes, you're still going to have that one memory of the failed business or the failed relationship. But now, you're going to have 30 memories of a thriving, abundant successful business, or a loving relationship that you want to have. And so start to live in that moment, and that feeling, feel the gratitude for the present moment. Because if you can feel fear for the future, is it possible that you can also feel gratitude for future that hasn't happened yet? And guess what the answer is, without a shadow of a doubt, Hell, yes, you can, of course you can. Our brain is so powerful, it's incredible. So you want to start to practice this visualization for the future that you want so that you can change the way that your brain is working. And this repetition is what changes your brain, doing it over and over again, you know, what it comes down to is, you have to want to change more than you want to be the same. People like comfort, and what they know, way more than anything else. Our brain is wired to prefer the known over the unknown. But if you can start to visualize that future that you actually want, then guess what it starts to feel and be familiar. And you can make it feel known. So mentally rehearse your future, over and over and over again. And yes, I know it can be hard. And there can be resistance, but you're doing it right, and you're gonna do it anyway. So get clear on what it is that you want for your future and get excited about it. You know, this is the power of living in your future versus living in your past. I am really, really excited for you. I cannot wait to see the changes that you make and you deserve to live your best life possible. You deserve to be happy, and to have a thriving business or a job or a loving relationship, whatever it is like you deserve all of that and you're worthy of it and I'm just so excited for you. So I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Thanks so much for listening in. You know, I love you and I think you're awesome. And I will see you the next time. Alright, bye.
