Looking back on your life: The Last 10 Years
Looking back at the last 10 years of your life has changed quite a bit, at least I assume. Looking back on your life is useful to do from time to time. After all, people often overestimate what they can accomplish in 1 year, but underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years
Looking back from 2010 to 2020, for example, what has happened in your life? In 2010, I started teaching hypnosis trainings structurally. In the first trainings, I had 4 to 5 people in a group.
Just this past year, we trained 300 people in 1 year. The company has also grown from 1 man to 18 people. This is a gigantic development.
As a person, you then naturally change as well. After all, you no longer do it alone. You get other roles, all of which you have to want as well. Maybe you don't want that at all.
It's interesting when that happens, though. Maybe you were in a relationship then that you are not in now. I myself had small children, they were 3 to 7. Now they are 13 to 17, which is a whole different age.
Researchers also indicate that reflecting on your life is incredibly important for your development as an adult[1]. This can then play a role in your social and communicative development.
Learning from less fun moments
Reflecting on the changes that have occurred is something I like to think about. Especially looking at what I've learned about certain things. It wasn't all fun, maybe it was even really awful at times.
For example, 2014 was my worst year ever, both business and personal. Without going into too many details, that was interesting. From that, I learned a few things:
- The right people are essential.
- Your own energy and beliefs are essential
This starts with the last one. I gathered people around me and they did not have my best interests at heart. Then you can say it's because of those people, because they do and they cause everything to go to shit.
That's not true, of course, because I gathered those people around me in the first place.
I also did all the things that triggered it in those people to do things with me.
This was pretty intense and extreme what was happening at the time. Things almost went wrong, both business and personal.
It could easily have gone wrong if I hadn’t made some changes myself. One of the things I did was not get caught up in the energy of those other people. This could have been easy, for example, by seeking revenge.
Believe me, I certainly thought of that.
That energy just doesn't work. You may have short-term gratification, but long-term misery.
When you correctly bring everything into the light you dissolve the shadow. More in the light, more confidence and that's a different energy.
2015 was truly a turning point. That’s when I joined Eelco de Boer’s “Latverhogers” program. There, I discovered the power of one’s environment.
Now I knew that was a thing, but I didn't know I was so sensitive to it.
The people I have around me have a lot of influence on me. That's fine if you have the right people around you. That's not fine if you don't have the right people around you. People who are not right for you.
In my case, this is disastrous.
That mastermind group changed everything for me. There I interacted with people who had ways of thinking that I automatically began to adopt. I also became like those people because of this. This is my way of learning.
This is often the reason I can pick up people's skills in a particular field very quickly.
I do a kind of deep trance identification that I become that person.
For example, I once did a Mesmer training with an Italian who of course did those hand movements and certain facial expressions and up to 2 months after that training that also came up with me from time to time. With clients, faces and a hand gesture. I couldn't do anything about that, it just happened.
When you learn this way, you realize that it’s helpful to have positive people around you. Negative people or those with negative energy aren’t helpful, because they cause me to change in the same way.
When I interact with people with good energy, I take that over. Information from those people then sticks with me.
So it’s incredibly important to me to have people around me with positive energy who offer constructive suggestions. That’s what has enabled the HIN to grow tenfold in just five years.
I also feel 10 times better as a person. That's harder to measure, of course.
Looking back on your life to influence your future
I, at least, have grown more because of it. That has been the biggest learning point for me over the past 10 years.
Get to know yourself: What is your learning style? What is your path to growth? What has helped you grow the most, and how can you maximize this over the next 10 years?
So how am I going to maximize that with those people over the next 10 years?
For you, the question is, what has made you grow the most in the past 10 years? Sometimes that's misery you've come out of stronger, but then what was the moment when you thought, Now I have strength.
What happened externally and also internally that made you feel this way? How did you do this?
When you know that about yourself and you can maximize this for the next 10 years, you don't have to wait for something super boring to happen for that development. Which will probably happen, because things happen in life.
For example, you often hear from people who were laid off that they suddenly started doing what they enjoyed. They say that if they hadn’t been laid off, this would never have happened.
But if you know about yourself, whatever it is, those may have been certain points that caused you to grow.
That you can do this through reflection rather than because an external factor forces you to reflect.
You can do this annually, or even several times a year.
If you know that—like how you listened to your heart and chose what was right for you—then it’s okay. This doesn’t have to be entirely rational. It doesn’t have to be clear to other people either, as long as it’s clear to you. Because right now, it’s purely about you.
Then you know what to do. Then you can figure out how to use it more.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/2381231-de-afgelopen-tien-jaar?play=true
Looking back on your life isn't always perfect
Knowing yourself isn’t always easy, because it can also be very painful. People often consciously block negative emotions and thoughts—and sometimes even unconsciously. What can prevent people from looking back on their lives positively are mental processes that influence how you perceive things, your motor skills, your personality, your opinions on certain matters, and your self-confidence.
One way to make this easier is to imagine how other people see you. However, researchers do caution that it is not always helpful to see yourself as some sort of pure reality[2] because you may have done some very stupid things.
What the researchers are actually talking about is the influence of your beliefs on how you view your life. If you notice that your life isn’t going the way you want it to, or that certain patterns keep recurring in your life, hypnotherapy can help you figure out why.
Regression, for example, is a form of hypnotherapy that uses reflecting on your life, but then you start looking very precisely at where the pattern you don't want anymore arose. You then begin to look at the moment when a belief arose that created this unwanted pattern in your life.
Then you will do something with that moment to change that belief so you can break this awkward pattern in your life.
So that it might be easier for you to have people around you to help you and not be negative, as I had to do.
The big difference between empathizing with other people and how they see you and doing this with the help of a hypnotherapist is that when this causes negative feelings about yourself, the hypnotherapist can directly help you remove those negative feelings as well. To strengthen self-compassion even then.
In this way, you can safely look back on your life without compromising your ego.
Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then join a free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Instead, would you like to immediately learn more about regression and other hypnosis techniques to help yourself or others? Then enroll in one of our trainings. The trainings are given online from a professional studio and with enough professional assistance for 1 on 1 attention.
Sources:
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927×06289425
[2] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-10385-017