7 Ways To Succeed at Forgetting

Your inner critic helps you remember pain and disappointment.

Negative memories rain like rocks. Botched projects increase anxiety. Bungled relationships motivate isolation. Anxiety and isolation limit your life.

Research says you remember bad experiences with greater frequency, detail, and intensity than good.

Forget about silencing your inner critic.

Everyone wants to strengthen memory, but sometimes it’s better to succeed at forgetting.

7 ways to succeed at forgetting:

Don’t give pain and disappointment permission to govern the present. When pain and disappointment rule, the future hides behind the horizon.

You can’t erase memory. You always remember painful experiences, disappointments, and failures.

Forgetting is choosing to act without pain and disappointment in mind. Remembering is choosing to act WITH vision and opportunity in mind.

Dwelling on a painful past turns you into a ‘don’t want’ person. You don’t want painful experiences coming back. If you want to succeed, be a ‘do want’ person.

7 ways to succeed at forgetting:

1. Forget failure. Remember lessons.
2. Forget disappointment. Remember what you saw in yourself.
3. Forget pain. Remember people that enabled your growth.
4. Forget the mess. Remember the reward.
5. Forget things that weakened you. Remember that you’re stronger today.
6. Forget jerk-holes that threw barriers. Remember people who provided opportunity. It’s self-destructive to live with detractors and haters in mind.
7. Forget doubt. Remember things that strengthen belief. Remember times you overcame adversity instead of times you threw in the towel.

What’s important to remember when you’re trying to forget?

What will you choose to remember today? (Remembering is acting with something in mind. It’s not simply recall.)

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This post was previously published on Leadership Freak with a Creative Commons License.

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