Ways to distinguish yourself - #41 Selectively forget things
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During a recent lunch meeting, Ashwin Rangan, CIO of Walmart.com talked about this concept. So, credit goes to Ashwin.
One of the key things in life is to “selectively forget”
things. There are so many things that happen to us during the course of
our lifetime. I always say “either we win or we learn” When we “learn”
life is giving us some feedback. The feedback and learning is what is
important. There is no point in recreating the entire scenarios once
the learning has happened. I talked about it in some sense when I said “Use your thinking bandwidth wisely.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if you review your day and mentally capture the
learnings from the day and decide to “selectively forget” certain
things. I am sure there will be less clutter in the mind to deal with.
Thanks Ashwin.
I want to know how you actually go about selectively forgeting things. There have been 3 things that have happened to me and I want to know how I can forget they ever happened.
Hello there:
One easy option is to get busy with things that you DO want to remember. I am assuming that you want to forget 3 things that are causing you some hurt when you remember them.
How about giving it less or no attention every time they come back to your memory. Like ignoring those thoughts.
The other question is - “What is that you are getting by remembering those 3 things? What incentive do you have to remember them?”
Sometimes people want to feel hurt or sad as that will give them an excuse for inaction on some of their other projects. Like a justification for slacking. I am not saying that you are doing this but it’s something that you should keep in mind.
My $.02 of course.
Best,
Raj