OK, so you’ve made a lot of bad decisions early in life, and they’ve come back to haunt you. Don’t let them. Your early choices don’t have to doom you to mediocrity for the rest of your life. My life began turning around at the age of 26 when I became aware of that fact. You can make the same kind of turnaround at any age.
Don’t be turned off by a lot of negative sayings you’ve heard all your life. “I am what I am, and that’s what I am,” said Popeye the sailor. “You’ve made your bed, and now you’ve got to lie in it,” said countless parents to sons and daughters who made foolish decisions.
If you want to spend your life making excuses for failure, believe what Popeye and countless parents have said. Throw up your hands and say “You can’t teach an old dog, new tricks,” then slink off with your tail between your legs. If you believe all that negative stuff, you’ll find that the negative stuff is true. But if you believe positive things, you’ll find that they can prove to be just as true.
If you want to spend your life moving firmly toward success, believe me: You don’t have to be a prisoner of your earlier decisions in life. Too many people have been trapped by the “I can’t change” attitude. They say: “Hey, I’ve been a rock my whole life. Don’t start chipping and sanding and polishing to try to make me into a diamond, I’ll never be anything but a rock.”
To prepare yourself for success, you’ve got to turn that attitude around.
“I was what I was. I’ll be what I want to be. And right now, I want to be successful and I’m going for greatness.” If you take that attitude, you’re on your way to accomplishing great things. You need to understand that the past is the past. Whatever choices you’ve made in the past belong there. The future is out there to be won, and you don’t win it by sitting around moping over the past.
It took me years to discover that I was using my past as an anchor toward my future. I was simply trapped in the past and didn’t have to be. I learned that there is nothing special about successful people; it’s what they do, not who they are that counts.
It's time to leave mediocrity behind, and go for greatness!