I found this ad just the other day and I love it! We have so many goof ups, mistakes, challenges and failings in our past that continually bump around in our head trying to distract us from moving ahead.
Stephen Covey first conveyed this thought – our power lies in our ability to chose our responses. It is that moment between situation and response where we choose to be a hero and move forward in a positive and pro-active way or we listen to those old voices and just give up.
Your past does not have to determine your future, today’s decisions do.
Update 1/01/10 – since I made the above post, Tiger Woods has fallen upon hard times – brought about by his own choices, obviously. It will be interesting to see how he chooses to respond. Will he face up to his mistakes and move forward with integrity and dignity?
More importantly – what challenges are you facing today? What mistakes are following you around? Will you choose to use them as opportunities for growth and move on?
As of this moment, Tiger is out of the spotlight – re-grouping and trying to figure out where to go from here. There’s a lesson for us in that. Sometimes we need to step back and re-group, too. It’s okay to take some time to reflect and even wallow a little bit in our errors. Just don’t stay there!