In Favor of Looking Back

When my cousin was learning to walk, his mom (yes, who’s also my cousin, but this sentence is awkward no matter how I slice it so just go with it, anyway..his mom) would tell him: “look where you’re going, not where you’ve been.” 

He needed to learn that, if he was going up or down the stairs, it was a way better idea to look at where he was placing his feet than where he’d come from. You know, so he didn’t go rolling down the stairs -- head first or feet first.

You already know where I’m going with this. If we’re always looking at where we’ve been, we not only have know idea where we’re going. We’re likely to end up tumbling through with no direction. Sort of the mere mortal’s equivalent of the twisties.

In fact, some of the smartest, most accomplished people I know have mastered living fully in the present moment. They don’t look backwards. They hardly even look forwards. At least, they don’t live in the future any more than they live in the past. Feet squarely planted on the ground and in this present moment.

But I’d like to suggest a middle ground. And make an argument in favor of looking backwards.

In the process of clearing physical clutter (I don’t have much clutter, but am getting down to almost zero clutter), I’ve had the weird experience of digging through a lot of old professional notebooks.

I think by writing. So I write everything down. At least, a lot of things. 

I write the things I learn from the books I read...sometimes pages and pages of quotes; sometimes doing the work. That time I did Seth Godin’s altMBA (shout out, cohort 5!), I wrote a lot. Those 2+ years when I was consulting full-time, I wrote down a lot -- about what I was doing, about what I was learning from people in the Arena and various mentors and coaches. Those years I was considering becoming a mediator, I wrote.

Back to the point. We humans are pretty flawed narrators. As time passes, we change the story. Not just what happened and when, but why and how.

Looking back at all these learning journals, I can see lessons I didn’t realize how hard I worked to learn.

Like how, on one coach’s advice, I started writing down every priority for each day -- personal, work, family, it’s all one day so write it down and do it.

Reading those lists today, I can feel the guilt I felt then -- every time I wrote something I saw as being for me. Even going on a run. (Which, obviously, was not just for me because I work better and am a better person to everyone around me when I workout every day. And even if it was just for me, obviously, that’s ok too.) Sometimes I’d even write when I came back from a run, clearly justifying the time and trying to feel productive.

I can also see processes I was skeptical about actually worked (holy #*$&( when I worked through Overcoming Undearning, I wrote down the salary I would earn that year...and...I...did exactly that. Actually, I surpassed it. That year.)

Looking back has given me a deeper and clearer understanding of the progress I’ve made in recent years, where I want to get in the next few years, and how I’ll get there.

But, perhaps more importantly, it’s given me proof that I can.

So, look back at where you’ve been. Not just at where you’re going. Just not all the time.