Louise Grafton

A week ago today I was preparing to celebrate my younger daughter’s 30th birthday. As with most milestones, it got me reflecting, as over the years, I’ve on occasion been told that I spend too much time looking back.

Whilst I understand what people mean, I’ve come to realise there’s a big difference between living in the past and learning from it. Living in the past keeps you stuck there, learning from the past helps you move forward.

When I look back, I’m not wishing I was there again (except perhaps to hold my daughters when younger again), I’m looking for lessons. The times I was aligned and things were going well, the times I wasn’t and things felt harder than they needed to. The habits, decisions, behaviours, and patterns that moved me towards the life I wanted, and those that moved me away from it.

Because if we don’t reflect, how do we know what’s working? How do we recognise what alignment looks like for us? How do we avoid repeating the same mistakes, frustrations, and detours?

For me, reflection isn’t about dwelling on what’s been, it’s about understanding what’s been so I can be more intentional about what’s next, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons milestones affect us so much. They remind us how quickly time passes.

Which makes it even more important to use what we’ve learned to create the future we actually want. So perhaps today’s Throwback Thursday reflection is this, Are you using your past as a place to live, or as a place to learn?

Because one keeps you stuck, the other helps you move forward in alignment and if you’d like support creating more clarity, alignment, and direction in your life, I’d love to help, message me and I’ll let you know more.

Plus if you’re looking for a practical way to reflect, learn, plan, and take more intentional action, take a look at Aligned By Design Living: The Planner or subscribe to Aligned By Design Living: The Weekly Email for weekly insights, reflections, and practical guidance.

Links in comments below.

“How do you keep doing the things you need to do to achieve your goals?”

It’s a question I’ve been asked more than once and the honest answer?

I don’t always feel like it.

For example, at the beginning of this year, I set myself a health goal because there were some health issues I wanted and needed to address. One of the actions I believed would help was to increase my movement, including my daily step target every month, it’s currently 12k steps a day.

Do I wake up every day excited about hitting 12k steps?

No! There are days when I’m tired, busy, or would much rather be doing something else but, as has become clearer to me over time, if the goal matters, then the actions required to achieve it have to matter too.

For me, it comes down to three things:

1: Being intentional about the goal.
2: Making sure the actions are aligned with the outcome I want.
3: Holding myself accountable for following through.

Not perfectly, just consistently on a daily basis because most goals aren’t achieved because we feel like doing the work every day. They’re achieved because we keep showing up, even on the days we don’t feel like doing so.

And that … is when we start winning!