There are many who blame their lack of success in life on their parents or others. They were either negligent or suffocating, too soft or too disciplinarian, unsupportive, overcritical, dismissive, unstable, absent, or any other negative concept that comes to mind.
Well, so what?
The thing is that no matter what anybody else did or didn’t do, however unfair, unreasonable, or downright cruel it was, you are the only person who can sort it out!
You really only have two choices: (1) carry on with the same old same old, letting them control at least part of your life as they have done up to now; or (2) decide enough is enough and you simply are not prepared to let them stop you getting somewhere any longer.
If you decide on (1), then you’re already in the place you want to be, and now you’ve made that decision for yourself, it will feel a lot better. Genuinely. You can ignore the rest of this article because it’s about letting go of all that and making changes in your life.
Now, if you decided on (2), then you have to genuinely let go of resentment, anger, urges to get your own back, determination to show them what they’ve done to you and the rest.
The only downside to it all is that you’ll have nobody to blame for not ‘getting somewhere’ in life but oddly, that means you’ll be more likely than ever to find success, because that’s what you’ll be thinking of rather than why you can’t have it.
You might still be hankering after getting your own back in some way but that almost always backfires. For a start, you’d be disappointed that you actually didn’t feel much better for very long, if at all, because the past is past and whatever had been done has still been done.
Not only that but you might end up feeling as if you were the guilty one!
When you finally let go of all the whatever-it-is you’ve been carting around, genuinely decide to let go of it, it’s peculiarly liberating. Because, although you may never have realised it, every thought you have is based on every thought you’ve already had.
Up until that moment you let go, every thought you have is connected backwards to what you experienced in your earliest years, and if those years were destructive, uncomfortable, depressive, or whatever, then every thought you have is connected to all that in some way.
But letting go is like an emotional full stop. A reset and refocus of your thoughts. For the first time you will be fully in charge of your life and not weighed down by “them”!
That emotional full stop is a wonderful thing that changes the way you think and what you think about. And though you might not be able to complete the process instantly, just understanding its importance and the desire for it to happen will get it started.
It’s not always easy, though, so here’s the five-point plan.
First: drop any idea that you’re letting them off anything – you’re not. You’re just accepting that what they did was based on what they knew how to do at the time for whatever reason.
Why they chose to behave that way is anybody’s guess – perhaps it’s for the very same reason that you would not… experience. We learn to be an adult by being a child and so we either repeat what we’ve learned or rebel against it. Perhaps they repeated it…
Second: think about what you would strive for if you knew beyond doubt you could get it. The perfect life partner. Your own thriving business. A best-selling author or a chart-topping star in music, TV, or films. Don’t let doubt about knowing how you would get there cloud your mind. Just choose.
This is actually one of the most important parts of the plan: recognising what they have stopped you trying to reach. Until now. Once you’ve decided what you want, you are focused on your future instead of your past.
The past cannot be changed, however much you rail against it. But the future is stretched out before you, unsullied, pristine, and yours to make the best of however you can.
And if you’re now thinking they would try to stop you in some way, then channel your resentment, frustration, or whatever into determination to prove to them – and yourself – that they are no longer in control.
Third: Accept that you are a work in progress and that whatever you have done or experienced in the past and however it has turned out has all been part of what has brought you to this very moment. It is the experience of life. And it is the experience of life, whatever that life was like, that is the foundation of success.
You are a work in progress and if you change your mind about what you are striving for, then that is all part of the experience that leads to… well, you decide. As a matter of interest, the more what you are reading in this article has “fired you up” the faster change will happen.
Fourth: If you’re only having a casual thought about it all at the moment, then it’s all part of the experience of life and perhaps the very first time that you’ve ever thought about trying to break free, trying to find the life you want rather than the one ‘they’ plonked you into!
Fifth: Always remember that nobody ever found success by sitting around thinking about it – if you want something to happen, then to do something to make it happen!
Of course, it’s not a foolproof plan for success but if you are keen and excited at the prospect, then it’s a great start. And if you get stuck on any of those five stages for whatever reason, any of our BWRT professional practitioners will be able to unstick you.
And remember what you read at the beginning: No matter what anybody else did or didn’t do, you are the only person who can sort it out.
Terence Watts is the creator of Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT).
