How to turn the past into an asset?

Reza Hossein Borr

The past is what you make of it. If you make it a liability, it becomes a liability. If you make it an asset, it becomes an asset. It is all up to you. You can decide the past even if it is past. Past is about the events that have happened. What you make of the events is up to you. The events do not have any meaning. You give them meaning. The meaning you give them determines the quality of your life in the past. Your past is the source of forming your future. If you want to build your future, reconstruct your past now. Past is always about the reconstruction of the events that have happened. You are the product of those constructions.

There is a strong inclination in everybody to construct the past as a liability. This is how your past spoils your future. If you use your past as an asset, whatever has happened in your life, finds a positive and productive role in your future. It turns every event into something which becomes the source of inspiration. The past is your greatest university. You can look into it and learn what you want to know about the future. Every event that has happened is a teacher; only if you have the capability to learn. Your past shows how much you have learnt. If you are very different from five years ago it means you have learnt a lot. If you are the same as you were five years ago, it means you have learnt nothing. Learning is about going forward and achieving more as you learn more.

Most of people who are sick and unhappy have made the past a source of sickness and unhappiness. Sorrow and sickness do not come from outside you. They come from within you when you don't know what make of something that happens and you don't like it. They are the results of events that you could not make the best of them. How come there was one event which made you sick but made somebody else happy? It is all about turning the event into a tragedy or into an opportunity. You can find opportunity in every event. An event does not offer you any opportunity; it is you who can turn the event into an opportunity and use the opportunity for making something positive for yourself and for others.

As a human being you have emotions like everybody else. There are thousands of different emotions. Every event generates some emotions. These emotions affect your body. The way they affect your body makes you sick or happy. The event is not within your control. Your emotions are. Even when you have negative emotions you can turn them into positive emotions. Emotions are changeable. When you change your emotions about an event, the event changes completely. That is the reason that whenever you recall an event several times, each time you recall it differently; it depends all about how you feel at the time that you recall the event. Your present emotional state can change the emotions of the past.

The happy people use their past as an asset. They turn it into a treasure that gives them unlimited income and benefits. Your past is within your control. Make your past what you want. Make it what can make your present pleasant and future promising.

Reza Hossein Borr is an NLP Master Trainer and a leadership consultant and the creator of 150 CDs and 14 Change management models. He is also the author of Manual Success, Manual of Coaching and Mentoring, Motivational Stories that Can Change Your Life, and a New Vision for the Islamic World. He can be contacted by email:www.sarawani@aol.com www.rezaaa.com