How to Create a Different Future

We do not remember days. We remember moments.

The secret to creating a different future is to remember a different past.

Literally.

What do you remember about your past? Do you remember the pain? The frustration? The injustice?

Unless you want to live these things again, you need to erase them from your mind.

No, I haven't become a perky, positive-thinking Pollyanna. I share only what was published last week in the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to lead researcher Karl Szpunar, “Our findings provide compelling support for the idea that memory and future thought are highly interrelated and help explain why future thought may be impossible without memories.”

Szpunar's team used advanced brain imaging techniques to show how (1.) remembering the past and (2.) envisioning the future are connected, as each one triggers similar patterns of brain activity in precisely the same areas of the brain. (These findings help explain why amnesiacs have difficulty imagining a personal future.)

The cognoscenti will remember me saying, “A person can take no action until they've first imagined that action in their mind. Persuasion begins when a person imagines themselves doing what you want them to do.”

Last week, The National Academy of Sciences added to our understanding by making it clear: Our ability to imagine the future is linked to our memories of the past.

Ponder past failure only if you want to recreate it.

Do you want a happy and successful future? Remember happy and successful moments.

Musicians and athletes have known this for years; “The way you practice is the way you'll play.”

In other words, you're probably going to do what you've been remembering.

What have you been remembering? If you want to create a better future, you must remember better moments from your past. These moments happened to you. They definitely happened.

You just need to remember them.

Roy H. Williams