You Are Not Limited By What You Did Yesterday

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
–George Eliot

I love to read, but more than that, I love to share wisdom and inspiration that I find.

When I find something especially good, I can barely contain my excitement. I text entire passages to friends, I call them up and read pages to them over the phone.

And today, I am excited to share such a passage with you:

You Never Have To Be Limited By Who You’ve Been

“One of the most common misconceptions in life is that what we did yesterday has to somehow dictate what we can do or be today.

It doesn’t. We never have to be limited by who we’ve been.

At any time, we can decide to be or do something different.[...]

We are the only one keeping score, and we truly can wipe the slate clean not only on any morning but also at any time.

The “day” when we decide to live out loud can start at any moment.[...]

Just show up.

Instead of dwelling on what you didn’t do yesterday,
do something about it now.

Instead of analyzing the choices you could have made,
make better choices now.

Instead of giving yourself a hard time for what you should have done,
realize you did the best you could and decide to do the best you can now.”
- Page 241 in Tiny Buddha by Lori Deschene

So that’s what I wanted to share with you today. If you’re interested, let me share a little more about the book with you.

About Tiny Buddha

This past month, I’ve been reading Tiny Buddha in short breaks, 5-20 pages at a time over tea and hot chocolate. It’s an easy, casual read and often feels like I’m reading someone’s journal (or, dare I say, blog).

It’s not a “how to” manual, but it’s not all one-liners or all inspiration either.

It is, as Lori says, “Simple wisdom for life’s hard questions.”

It’s actually very neat the way she has organized it: it was created as part of a collaborative effort with people online answering these tough questions about life, happiness, pain, and more. Along with their quotes and advice, Lori weaves in stories from her life about how she has dealt with difficult things that have happened to her.

Perhaps what I liked about it best was just finding someone else who enjoyed asking (and thinking about) big, difficult questions.

It also is a very cool looking little book, much cooler looking than the non-fiction I typically read – people kept coming up to me to ask what I was reading! Click here to check it out on Amazon.

A Quick Personal Update

I know many people have been asking where I’ve been, as I disappeared off of Facebook and Twitter recently. The truth is, I have been totally swamped with mentoring clients and creating customized personal effectiveness training materials. It’s a wonderful experience for me, and people are seeing tremendous results from the advanced training program. I’ll write you more about it later.

P.S. If you are thinking about wiping your slate clean, and about making next year the year you stop being limited by what you’ve had in the past - then make sure I’ve got your email address (just sign up below) and you’re getting emails from me, because I’ll be announcing something in just a week or so =)

Enjoy this article? You should Tweet This and share it with your friends, or feel free to share it however you like using this shortened link: http://sids.me/not-limited