Stop Driving Your Future While Looking at Your Past

Entrepreneurs often think the biggest thing slowing them down is lack of time, lack of resources, or lack of opportunity. But sometimes the real problem is a hidden habit that quietly steals focus, energy, and progress: constantly looking back at the past while trying to build the future.

This message comes from personal experience and from mistakes, setbacks, and patterns I had to recognize in my own life. Many entrepreneurs carry old stories, old resentment, old failures, and old emotions into their present workday. They sit down to work on their business, but their mind is somewhere else. They are thinking about people, problems, arguments, disappointments, or things that happened years ago. And when that happens, progress slows down, clarity disappears, and the future starts losing its power.

A successful entrepreneurial life requires a different habit. It requires learning how to close old chapters, stop feeding the past, and become deeply connected to the future you are building. Your future needs your focus. Your goals need your attention. Your vision needs your energy. You cannot build a meaningful business while constantly replaying what hurt you, what failed, or what went wrong before.

This episode is a reminder to stop dragging your past into your present. Break the habit of mentally living in old problems and start investing your best energy into the person you are becoming, the business you are building, and the future that still needs your work.

Key Takeaways

• Constantly replaying the past can quietly become a bad habit that drains focus, clarity, and productivity in entrepreneurship.
• Looking back at old failures, resentment, and negative memories makes it difficult to stay present and move forward with confidence.
• You cannot build a successful future while mentally living in your old story.
• The rearview mirror is useful for reference, but it cannot become your main direction. The same is true in life and business.
• When setbacks happen, many entrepreneurs get triggered and automatically return to old thoughts, old emotions, and old beliefs that keep them stuck.
• Repeating the past in your mind can create self-doubt, guilt, fear, and limiting beliefs about what is possible in your future.
• Your future should become your new project. It deserves your time, your energy, your care, and your daily focus.
• Presence, meditation, journaling, vision, and future-focused thinking can help break the habit of constantly revisiting the past.
• Entrepreneurs who stay connected to their future work with more energy, more gratitude, more clarity, and more momentum.
• Real progress begins when you close the old story, stop feeding it, and show up fully for the new version of yourself.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone who feels like they're constantly striving but never fully arriving. Mohammed’s message will help you reconnect with your power, speak to yourself with more compassion, and rewire the way you think about your worth, so you can start showing up as your whole, confident, and congruent self.

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Transcript

(0:07) Hey everyone, welcome to the Breakthrough Entrepreneurs Show, where we empower entrepreneurs (0:12) to build good habits, break old habits, rebuild powerful routines, overcome burnout, improve (0:20) performance, and create a healthier and more focused entrepreneurial life, while making (0:28) consistent progress in building their business. I am your host Mohammad Faraj and today our (0:35) topic is Stop Driving Your Future While Looking At Your Past. This is a super powerful episode. (0:48) Not so many people talk about things like this, but I talk about very important topics (0:56) because these are things I learned from my own personal experiences. I gained insights, I gained so much (1:06) information from mistakes, from failures, from personal experiences with others, with many people, with many (1:15) things in life. I learned them, I analyzed, I noticed, I think, I discover, I explore, I research. (1:24) So, today's topic is very powerful and I believe that so many entrepreneurs who are listening to me, they need to (1:34) hear this because they need to learn about this bad habit because unfortunately this bad habit is causing so many (1:43) entrepreneurs to slow down their progress, to not move forward, to stay stuck in their life, in their business, in their (1:53) entrepreneurial life, to stay stuck in their past. So, I choose to talk about this topic because it's super powerful and I (2:02) believe that if you learn and apply the things that I talk about in this episode, I promise you, you will show up to your (2:11) business differently, you will operate differently, you will start to change your perspective, you will start to be (2:20) laser focused on your future and divorce and give up and close down your past. So, stay tuned with me in this episode so I can (2:32) delve deeper into so many things that will help you transform your entrepreneurial life.You see, unfortunately, so many of us, (2:46) we have this bad habit where we are constantly remembering and looking at our past. So many of us, without our awareness, we have (2:58) so many thoughts in our subconscious mind and those old negative thoughts that are connected, that are linked, that belong to our past, (3:12) they always seem like they trigger us, they produce the same feelings and emotions and we start to think and feel negatively and waste so much (3:25) time, so much energy throughout our daily entrepreneurial life while trying to build a business, while trying to be productive, while (3:33) trying to be laser focused, while trying to get work done. So many of us, we are working, while we are working on building our business, our mind is (3:45) constantly looking back at our past.So, we remember past events, past activities, past incidents, past problems, past challenges, past (4:04) issues, people that we dealt with before. So many of us, when we used to work in our nine to five jobs, maybe we had a very bad boss, just like I did. I had (4:18) many bad people that I worked with, unfortunately.Some of them were good people, some of them were not. And I worked with people that I did not like (4:29) them. I did not want to be with them.I did not feel proud of working with them. So, I'm sure similar to me, so many people like me, they've had the same experiences. (4:43) They have worked on jobs that they hated, that they didn't like.They worked with people that they didn't enjoy, with negative people. Sometimes you meet jealous (4:54) people. Sometimes people are jealous of your success, jealous of your smile, jealous of your success, jealous at what you do.You do a better job, they get jealous at you. They hold (5:08) resentment on you. They don't like you.They hate you. They talk behind you. They criticize you.They try to find even like small things about you, so they can complain, so they can go and tell (5:22) others. Trust me, I've had the same people as Will. There are so many people don't like nice people like us.There are so many people don't like successful people like us. There are so many (5:36) people don't like happy people like us. People who contribute, who help, who have big hearts.So, I'm sure you've had these experiences. You've worked in many places. You've been involved with so many people. (5:52) Some people, they tricked you. Some people, they tried to steal you. Some people, they talked behind you, behind your back.Some people, they complained about you. They reported you. I've had the same people in my life too. (6:08) And so many of us, we've had problems, issues in our past. Maybe it was our old job. Maybe at the school.Maybe in sport. Maybe in our community. Maybe in our relationships.We've had people that we didn't agree with. (6:26) Some people that we didn't have really good relationships with. Or maybe we've had good relationships with them, but then they changed.They became different and we've had issues, problems with them. So, I'm sure so many of us, we've had bad things that happened in our past. (6:47) Resentment, problems, issues, jealousy.So, the problem is when we let our minds, our hearts constantly go back to our past, it's very hard to move forward. It's very hard to make progress. It's very hard to stay laser focused. (7:10) It's very hard to gain clarity about our future. It's very, very hard to pursue our goals, our dreams, to follow our vision. It's very, very super hard to build a successful future while looking at our past. (7:30) Our past maybe wasn't good. It wasn't very successful. It wasn't very healthy.Maybe we didn't feel happy. We didn't feel healthy in our past. So, unfortunately, so many of us, we have this one bad habit that we constantly look back at our past. (8:00) They go to the gym. They're thinking about their past. They're remembering all the incidents, all the challenges, all the problems from their past.Of course, they come back to their home. They come back to their office. So many entrepreneurs, they come back to their work while looking at their past. (8:21) You're constantly going back to your past. You're remembering the details of every problem, every issue, every challenge. People, they didn't treat you well.People, they didn't have good behaviors. People you've had problems with. (8:38) So, when we are doing this, unfortunately, we are impacting our life, our health, our future, our happiness, our goals, our dreams because we are constantly remembering and looking at our past but not investing our best assets, our time, our energy, our focus, our productivity on our future. (9:09) So many of us, we're still thinking about our old project, our old past. And even though the project didn't go well, but we still focus on that old project. (9:26) But my best advice for you is to break this habit, to remove this habit from your life drastically.Do not let this habit ruin your happiness, ruin your health, ruin your goals, ruin how you feel. (9:42) Because this habit is slowing down your progress. This habit is keeping you stuck, feeling stagnation.This habit is preventing you from being happy, from being healthy. (9:58) This habit is avoiding you from following that vision, from pursuing those dreams and accomplishing those goals. So, do not let this bad habit take a big place in your daily entrepreneurial life by constantly reviewing your past, going back to your past, and you're constantly generating negative thoughts, feelings, emotions, and you are programming your body for your past. (10:28) And that's why you don't feel good. Even though you're working on your dreams, on your business, but you're not happy, you're not excited. You don't enjoy your daily entrepreneurial life because you are connected to your past. (10:44) Because this habit is consuming so much of your time, so much of your energy, so much of your time, feeling angry, frustrated, holding resentment, angry at people, at events, feeling guilty sometimes, feeling like you've done things that you shouldn't done or you shouldn't do. (11:08) Criticizing yourself for doing mistakes, for failures that you feel like you shouldn't do them. You should not make those mistakes.So, feeling regretful. You regret for mistakes. You regret for things that you said to others.You regret for problems that you created. (11:33) So, this habit is running in your daily entrepreneurial life and this pattern is killing you. It's killing your dreams, your future.You can't expect to build a successful future while looking back at your past. (11:49) I give this perfect example or analogy about this topic where you can't drive a car forward while looking at the back mirror. I mean, just do it for one day.Just test. Make a test. (12:11) Try to drive a car forward by looking at the back of your mirror or looking at the back mirror.You see, you can't do that. You can hit a wall. You can hit a kid or a dog or any animal. (12:29) You can mistakenly drive into someone else's house or garden. Maybe you can hit another car. You can't focus.You can't see your future while looking back at your past. You can't drive forward while looking at your past. You can't.It's impossible. (12:55) So, my best advice for you is to not be reactive if something goes wrong, if you meet a setback or a challenge or if you fail. Do not let this issue, that problem, that failure, that mistake trigger old negative thoughts, feelings, emotions and you repeat the same habit and you're constantly feeling sorry for yourself. (13:22) You're feeling guilty. You're feeling sad emotionally. Very sad, guilty and you're remembering your past.You're thinking about all the past challenges, problems, mistakes that you made and unfortunately, when you're doing this, when you are viewing your past, when you are looking back at your past, what ends up happening is that you're not moving forward. (13:52) You're not working efficiently. You're not productive.You're not present. You're not focusing on your future. You're not working on those projects, on those tasks that move your dreams closer to you. (14:09) You're just constantly bombarded with so many negative thoughts, feelings, emotions and you're stuck and you're resentful and you're feeling guilty, sad and feeling sorry for yourself and what ends up happening is that this creates a belief where you start to tell yourself, okay, I failed in the past. That means I will fail in the future. (14:37) I made a mistake in the past.That means I'm going to make so many mistakes in the future. I failed in the past. That means I'm a loser.That means I'm a failure. That means I'm not going to succeed in the future. (14:51) Okay, I made those mistakes.I created those problems. Okay, you start to feel worried that, oh, I am going to create more problems in the future or things that happened before. I believe that they're going to happen in the future again. (15:11) This is the problem with not giving up our past or not divorcing our past. It creates belief. You start to feel negative and you get self doubts.You start to doubt your business, your future, your goals, your dreams. (15:32) You start to believe that when you are working on your business, you're just wasting your time, that you're not meant to be an entrepreneur, that you're not going to break through in your entrepreneurial life. You start to believe that your goals are just delusions, that you will not be able to accomplish them or that you're not talented or that you're not capable or that you're not smart. (15:58) So remembering our past creates a belief, a limited belief for our future. And we need to constantly remember and remind ourselves that our past was an old project and we closed that old project. (16:21) Now we are investing our time, our energy, our focus, our effort on our new project, our future project.So close your old project and open a new project. Your future is your new project. (16:40) Every day you wake up in the morning, you need to show up for your new project.You need to water that project, water that project with love, care, belief that light you up, that drive you forward. (16:58) Take care of that project. Always take care of that project.Always every day show up to that project, work on that project, complete that project, improve that project. (17:13) Your future is a big project. This is where you need to focus on.You need to stop remembering your past. You need to stop bringing your old story, all the negative things that happened in your past, and you need to focus on your future. (17:32) That's why you can't drive forward while looking back at your past.What are those skills that you want to start developing for your future? What are those habits that you want to build for your future? Habit by habit, routine by routine, ritual by ritual. (17:56) So when people sometimes tell me, do you remember this? Do you remember that? Sometimes I tell them, no, I'm sorry, I don't remember. But they say why? Well, I tell them it's because I want to be present. (18:11) I want to focus on my future. I want to move forward toward my future. I don't want to remember my past.I don't want to have old memories programmed in my body, in my subconscious mind. I don't want to remember past events, activities, people, things that happened in my life. I want to be present. (18:39) That's my reference. That's why I want to stay present. I want to repeat good habits.I want to do meditation so I can stay in presence, so I can focus on my future, so I can focus on those projects that I am going to work on, that I'm going to build. (19:01) I am busy with my future. I shouldn't be busy with my past.I shouldn't bring back old memories, old things. They happened before and there's nothing I can do about my past. I can't change my past.I can't improve my past. (19:22) I can't feel regretful about my past. These are things that happened and they are gone.My past is gone from my life. Now I have my future. Now I can reflect on my future.Now I can journal about my future. Now I can think about my future. (19:43) What do I need to do to fix my future? What do I need to work on for my future? What do I need to build for my future? What work needs to be done that moves me forward to my future? (20:01) So I'm all about my future.As an entrepreneur, I am all about my future. I am my future self. I am my future version.I am my future entrepreneur role. I am in a role that I want to become a very successful entrepreneur in the future. (20:23) I am an entrepreneur because I believe in my future.I am super busy with my future. I don't want anything distract me or avoid me or stop me from moving forward toward my future. I don't want all distractions.I don't want to distract myself with my past. (20:46) I forgot about what things said about me. I forgot about things where I said to others.That's it. We need to close that book. We need to close that project.We need to close that old story and start to tell a new story. We need to build a good, powerful story about our future. (21:13) You see, people that you love, that you care about, that you want to serve, they need your future self.They need you for the future. They don't need your past. (21:29) People, they won't get help from you if you are just looking at your past.If you are looking miserable, looking sad, looking like you're sorry for yourself, people can't expect to see a successful entrepreneur. (21:50) But when you are in your new version, when you are happy, when you are healthy, when you are successful, people expect to get help from you. They want you to solve their problems.They want you to build products and services for them. (22:09) So, your past shouldn't have any place in your life, in your future. You need to separate yourself from your past.If people ask you, do you remember this? Do you remember what happened in that time? Do you remember what happened in that place? (22:26) No, tell them I don't. Because I don't spend most of my time looking back at my past. I am in my future.I'm constantly thinking about my future. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 30 days in a month. I'm just about my future. (22:49) I'm so connected to my future. I don't want to bring anything from my past. I don't want to remember anything from my past.Yes, I failed. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I created problems.Yes, I went through challenges, issues, problems. (23:07) Yes, I struggled. Yes, I used to be my old version.But now, I'm my new version. Now, I am my future self. Now, I'm different.Now, I walk differently. I talk differently. I show up differently.I love differently. I work differently. I train differently. (23:30) So, this is a super important topic. So, so many of us, unfortunately, we're stuck in so many bad habits because we are constantly embracing that old habit that we are constantly looking at our past. Whenever we fail, whenever we meet a setback, whenever something goes wrong, directly. (23:58) We get triggered and we react and we bring back so many negative, old, bad things and stories from our past. And unfortunately, this slows down our progress. (24:16) I mean, just notice how much progress you make when you are writing down your goals, when you are waking up in the morning with a vision, thinking and visualizing your future, how you're going to feel, how you're going to be. (24:33) When you are focusing on your vision of your future, how much it empowers you, how much it encourages you, how much your future makes you feeling happy, excited, optimistic. It's coming. Your future is coming to you.Your goals, your dreams are getting closer to you. (24:51) How much work do you get done in that day when you are feeling like this, when you are feeling your future, when you are thinking about your future, when you are fully present, when you are fully connected, linked to your future. (25:07) When you are working every hour in your daily entrepreneurial life, your mind, your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions, they're all connected for laser focus on your future. (25:20) How do you feel that day? How much happy do you feel? How much grateful do you feel? (25:25) You look around your environment, you feel grateful, you feel blissful, you feel happy, you feel grateful, you feel thankful for your family, for your life. (25:38) You're feeling happy, excited, you're enjoying your entrepreneurial life because you're bringing so many positive thoughts, feelings, emotions, and you're training your body for that future, and that future is coming to you, is getting closer to you. (25:55) But on the other hand, I mean, go sit with yourself.I promise you, make it a test. Go sit with yourself, even for one hour. I mean, some of people, some entrepreneurs, unfortunately, they use like, I don't know, days, sometimes weeks. (26:14) They're feeling sorry, guilty, sad, looking back at their old story, their past. So, I mean, just test for one hour. Go sit with yourself and just think about all the terrible things, all the horrible things, all the problems, all the arguments, all the issues, all the bad things, all the negative things that happened in your past. (26:41) Look how you're breathing. Look how you're feeling. Look how you're moving.Look how your day looks like. Look at your emotions. Just make it a test for one hour.That's why I'm burning inside my heart. I'm telling you, those are distracting you. Those are impacting your life. (27:08) A successful entrepreneur, an entrepreneur who wants to break through in their entrepreneurial life, who wants to accomplish their goals, dreamers who want to make their dreams come true, will never bring back their past into their present moment. (27:26) Will never think about their past. Dreamers, successful entrepreneurs, will never bring back any old story.Will never remember any old past event. (27:43) Because they know that if they keep doing this, they are moving away from their goals, from their dreams. They're going back to their past. (27:53) But goal achievers, healthy people, happy people, successful entrepreneurs, dreamers, they're constantly looking at their future. They're looking at their vision board. (28:09) They're viewing, writing down their goals.They're so connected, so linked to their future where they don't even remember what happened before. They don't care about what happened before. (28:25) They don't give a shit about their old story, about their old past.Because what the hell is this going to do? Is it going to help you as an entrepreneur? (28:38) If you sit with yourself, think and feel your past, is it going to help you? Is it going to move you forward? (28:47) Are you accomplishing anything that day when you are so negative, feeling frustrated, angry, resentful, overwhelmed, stressed out? (29:00) You're sitting in your workplace, thinking that you're working, but you're wasting so much time. You're wasting countless hours in your daily entrepreneurial life. (29:15) Your mind is somewhere else.Your mind is in the past, but your eyes are on the work. (29:22) But when you are focusing on your future, on your goals, on your dreams, even when you're looking at your work, you're working efficiently. (29:34) You're present.You're focused, laser focused. You're productive. You're getting things done.You're working faster, harder. You're investing your time, your energy, your effort that day. (29:48) So please, after you listen to this podcast, after you listen to this podcast episode from today, make it a decision.Write it down.