We will never be new with the old tagging along

​We all get to the next version of ourselves. In many ways, that is the mystery story in all of our lives.

What will the next version look like?

Sometimes the next version is a drastic revision. It's the other side of a broken marriage. It's the other side of a new job or moving to a new state. It's becoming a parent or a pastor.

Sometimes, though, next isn't so drastic. Sometimes the next version of ourselves is simply called today. It's waking up knowing today me isn't yesterday me.

Whether we are on the other side of yesterday or the other side of a broken relationship, the choice is the same. Do I leave behind all the reasons I wasn't becoming who I longed to become, or do I bring those reasons with me?

Does next look like something new and hopeful, or does next look a lot like previous?

We have a lot more control over that answer than I think we realize.

Science tells us that left unchanged, 90% of the thoughts we have today will be the same thoughts we had yesterday. Our brains are very accommodating that way. If we don't want to put in the work of establishing new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing ourselves, our brains will simply borrow yesterdays thoughts to fill the void.

I'm prone to looking back on my life with some regret realizing the number of days I simply turned my thoughts over to a brain completely okay with repurposing yesterdays flawed thought patterns.

Thoughts that didn't often thing very highly of me.

You are therefore reading the story of someone who knows it's true. If we bring previous internal thoughts and habits from our previous versions into the next versions of us, life won't be much different at all - no matter how much life might have changed on the outside.

Becoming who we long to become requires us to start thinking like and making choices that look like that person.

Sure, maybe there were things in our old versions holding us back from doing that; maybe there are things in our next versions that offer us more hope. But no matter what version of us we are in, previous or next, our old selves are tagging along.

That is, until we tell that 90% today's the day we start using some new math!!

It's ultimately us who decides what we make of our next versions. It's ultimately us who decides, more of the same or more of what I've always known I could be. We can move next as far away as we want from previous, but if we bring our previous attitudes or habits with us, next and previous won't look much different at all.

A lot of us get to the next version of ourselves and start wondering, why doesn't this look or feel or sound any different than the last version?

The answer is, you allowed the old version to tag along.

Next will always be the same as previous if we don't come to understand there actually is no next without doing the work of making our next thoughts different from the previous ones.

A lot of people go into next phases of life living old versions of their lives, which is sad given that one of the great gifts of new phases is the opportunity to create new versions of ourselves.

But not all opportunities are seized.

Which again, makes our next versions a bit of a mystery. Whose will look like something new, and whose will look a lot like the last one?

Who will seize the opportunity?