Staring at the world through your rearview.

How often should we look back?

I’m a huge believer in always looking to the future, but here’s where I contradict myself by saying I’m an even bigger believer in remembering where you came from. 

The use of the rearview mirror is a tough skill to master, If you’re constantly looking into it you won’t be able to see where you’re going, but if you don’t look into it enough, you’ll forget how far you’ve come.

If I find myself in a situation that is challenging and making me feel uncomfortable I tend to flick my eyes up to the rearview to draw on any previous experience I’ve had with this situation. I look at how I dealt with it previously, if that worked, didn’t work or just generally how I could deal with it better. The same goes with resilience. If I’m running a long distance and the pain starts to take hold of my body, I take a quick glance into the rearview and remember a time where I’ve faced equal or worse pain and managed to overcome it.

Staring at the world through your rearview however, can be a dangerous outlook. Do not get stuck in a mindset of “what if” “I wish I hadn’t” and just generally beating yourself up about past mistakes.

So , how often should we use the rearview then? Well in my opinion, we have the perfect example in the way we drive the car. For the majority of the time we’ll be looking dead ahead but every now and then we have a quick check of those mirrors to check what’s behind us.