How can I express in a sentence something that happened in the past but that has an impact on the present?

Given that English is not my first language, I was wondering how to express a verb that started and ended in the past but that has a repercussion in the present moment... Is it correct to say “spent my life developing the perfect recipe only managed to keep me away from my passion”? (The sentence is just an example, but I hope it is sufficiently explanatory)

Solution 1:

If you want to talk about an action as something that caused something, then the action is functioning as a noun (it's a thing that is doing stuff). A noun formed from a verb is a gerund. So it would be "Spending my life ..."