I had planned it months before.
My wife is a huge fan of the band, U2, and she has made our entire family fans too. When they came to the U.S. for their latest tour, we jumped at the chance to take our kids who were 4 and 7 at the time.
We all had a blast and it will be a memory for them and us forever. The only thing I wanted after that was an opportunity to do it over again with only my wife. That would give us an experience all our own and would let her focus on nothing but enjoying herself. When the tour announced it was coming back through Chicago (our closest opportunity), I jumped to make it happen.
I splurged for club-level seats and had a clear picture of spoiling her rotten on a 3-day getaway. The tickets secured, I went back to work on other things.
Two weeks out from the show date, I realized that we had a problem…I had dropped the ball and we weren’t going to be able to go.
What?! How is it possible that I could let that happen? I make my living and my life by establishing and protecting priorities. The idea that this event slipped under my radar was almost inconceivable, but there it was in bold letters. FAIL!
Because I hadn’t given the trip and concert the priority it needed, I allowed “circumstances” to push into those days and take over. I couldn’t fix it at that point and the lesson was immediate. The adjustments I made to my own life-management were quick and supremely effective and YES, I made it up to my wife. More on that in a bit, but that isn’t even the subject for today.
The thing that I want to point out is what was left after the lessons and corrections were made. No matter how effective I’ll be going forward, I still regretted my mistake. Knowing that I had learned from the mistake and forgiven myself for it didn’t make me happy with the result. I still had regret.
Now if we subscribe to the ideology from the majority of the self-help industry, my first thought about a regret is that I shouldn’t have it. I’m supposed to live life in a way that I won’t have any regrets. Therefore, if I have one I must not be doing things right.
Let’s look at that for a second…To have avoided that regret I could have fixed the issue before I knew it was an issue or played it safe and not bought the tickets or planned the trip.
- As for fixing something I didn’t know was there…I’m good, but not that good.
- Playing it safe? That’s a guarantee of regret.
So what’s a person to do? I’d like to propose that we take regrets and wring every last drop of usefulness out them instead of trying to avoid them.
First off, what is a regret? The prefix puts it in its place right away. When we see re- at the beginning of a word we know that things are headed backward. Remember, refute, rejoice, reimburse, react… they all refer (there’s another one) to something that is already there or happened. So a regret can’t even exist until something has happened!
There’s a breakthrough for somebody. Want a life without regret? Don’t do anything! Oh wait…then you would look back and regret what you didn’t do… guess that makes it impossible, huh?
So if regret is a matter of looking back, our challenge isn’t to avoid them but to decide HOW we see and use them. Will they become anchors of burden or will they contribute to the wind in our sails? That is all a matter of mindset.
Here are 3 steps that I can guarantee will put regret in the proper place in your mindset.
- Live! – Go for it every day. Do something you have the potential to regret by the world’s standards. Why? Because that is the only way you’ll have the potential for anything of real meaning. The world at-large encourages conformity and mediocrity, which both stink. Get out of the boat and see if you can walk on water!
- Evaluate critically – Critical thinking means that you can look at situations without the heavily clouded lens of emotion. I don’t believe we can or should completely eliminate emotions, but we have to see things as they are if we hope to keep our sanity. If we see every event through embarrassment, anxiety, or what our broke relatives might say…well, we don’t see reality.
- Embrace humility – True humility comes from giving your all, realizing that you will never be perfect, and knowing that is okay. When mistakes/regret pop up we have to forgive ourselves in order to move forward. The root of forgiveness and realizing we need it, is humility. Embracing humility helps us step away from perfectionism and anxiety without giving up on high standards.
Each day since missing that concert, I’ve kept the tickets on my desk to remind me of the lesson and put wind in my sails to get better. Admittedly, it took a few weeks before I truly forgave myself of everything to do with it, but the moment of release was very powerful.The resulting contemplation and actions from that mistake have enhanced everything my wife and I do since then. We are stronger and more in love now than we were before. Chalk one up for regret.
While cleaning my desk on New Year’s day (a tradition for me) I picked up the tickets and smiled when I looked at them. The smile and corresponding feeling in the rest of my body and soul tells me they’ve served their usefulness. The picture above is the last look before going away forever.
I also want to make sure you understand, this works for all regret. This concert scenario is only a very, very, very, very small example of the regrets in my life. Some of them have the potential to cripple my every move if allowed to hold power. Put in their place they have shaped who I am and will contribute to who I’m becoming. They won’t ever go away, but because I have stripped them of any control they might have on me and accepted them into the fabric of who I am, I control them and their influence. You can do the same.
Regrets are an inevitable part of life if you are conscious, but they do not have to hold power over you unless you allow them.
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PJ McClure helps aspiring entrepreneurs to multi-million dollar business owners destroy roadblocks and seize opportunities to achieve their ideal vision of success. He is an award-winning speaker and the best-selling author of Flip the SWITCH: How to Turn On and Turn Up Your Mindset and the upcoming Unlock Your Life: How to go beyond Time-Management to the Life of Your Dreams. You can download a copy of Flip the SWITCH for Free by clicking here.
