Life and Career Coaches are all about envisioning and moving into the future. But sometimes that glance into the rear view mirror can be motivating, too. Try this just for fun:
• Start with your age today.
• Divide that number in half.
• Add that number to your birth year.
• The number you reach is the year you were “half your age” now.
What were you doing that year? Usually we anchor the memory of a particular year with a memorable event. Did you experience a milestone event, a transition or a loss? Perhaps you moved into another home or career path. Where did you live? Who were your friends? Were you in school? Where were you employed? Did you make a difference in someone’s life?
Looking back can give us perspective. Whether we see ourselves on a positive path or shaky ground, it is helpful to take the long view of our successes as well as the opportunities for doing it better the next time around. How can I take that experience from half my life ago and learn from it? Who was in my life back then that was a positive influence on my future? Do I have those people or that kind of person still persuading me to be all I can be? Am I a positive influence on someone else? Where did I think I was heading then and how is my life today better or different?
Your “half-life” changes noticeably by the decade of your life now. I posed this question to my 31-year-old son recently. Half my life ago was the year he was born. Half his life ago, he was getting his driver’s license. My oldest friends have a half-life in their mid-forties. Their mid-life memory would come from the 1960’s. You can glance back with regret, nostalgia or pride.
We do not benefit from remaining stuck in the past. A backward glance can inform our understanding of a better way to live forward. I subscribe to this perspective:
Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards. — Søren Kierkegaard
What were you doing half your life ago? What will you allow yourself to learn from that? How will that perspective influence the choices you make about the years and decades ahead?
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Tags: Cinda Gorman, Hindsight, life coaching, Seasons of Purpose
