By Reut Schwartz-Hebron
January 2009

When you’re driving, your car goes from bump to hurdle. Each time you drive over a stone or a hole in the road, it feels harder and harder for you to keep looking forward.

The same often happens to us when we try to learn or build something new. The road seems full of bumps.

As we start a new year, I often think about vision and looking forward versus assessing what we have accomplished so far. When the last year has been full of bumps, it’s up to us to redraw strength and look forward.

What is it in you that helps you look forward to the place the road leads rather than choosing to fixate in the rear-view mirror and dwell on disappointments that have already passed?

If you subscribe to a “rear-view mirror” understanding of the world, you’ll be blind to change, and simply won’t be able to foresee the arrival of a new opportunity or threat until it’s already happened — in your rear-view mirror. If you don’t let go of the fixation of the past, you’ll always be “one step behind.” Furthermore, growth is a matter of momentum. If you are too busy looking back, you are not taking advantage of the momentum, and restarting the movement requires a lot of extra work.

• Give yourself the gift of awareness. Assess what you see in both mirrors, and make space to be in control instead of submitting yourself to an auto-pilot cruise.
• Practice being matter of fact about learning on an ongoing basis. Learning from experience and projecting into the future is a combination of emotional and thinking habits, and habits are best created when you don’t need them.
• Learn to anticipate bumps. Listen to people who have just driven that road and to your subconscious mind warning you about complications and try to respond to early signs.