Letting Go of Mental Baggage: Be a Goldfish
“Be a goldfish.” My brother-in-law, to me.
“What?”
“Be a goldfish,” he said. “Have a memory that’s 10 seconds long.”
We were in the middle of a heart-to-heart—about relationships, and growing older. The kind of changes and challenges that can bring you down.
If you let them.
And since that day, I’ve taken his advice to heart.
***
Being a goldfish means living without baggage.
You might get upset. But then you get over it.
You focus on moving forward and what’s ahead. Every day—or maybe 100 times a day—you reset.
It sounds naive. But it’s a surprising prescription for happiness.
You will make bad decisions in your business, and in your life. The lessons you learn from those mistakes will be invaluable.
What’s not valuable? Beating yourself up for your choices long after you’ve made them.
To be an entrepreneur, you must be resilient.
And you find resilience by resetting after the hard stuff. Forgetting about it.
Moving on.
***
So, how do you become a goldfish?
I don’t have a perfect answer for you.
I think it comes from believing that it’s a better way to be. From not seeing any value in the alternative.
Ask yourself, “What’s the best thing to do in this situation?”
95% of the time, the answer is to let it go.
To be clear—that’s not just the best thing for somebody else. That’s the best thing for YOU, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Holding on to anger or shame or your screw-ups doesn’t help you move forward.
Have a short memory for the bad stuff.
And if there’s anything in 2023 that didn’t serve you, leave it behind.
Be a goldfish.
Wishing you a very Happy New Year, from all of us at Crews & co.
