1-Minute Wednesday No. 134: The most essential minute of your week online

Regret Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

The world teaches regret is something to be avoided. But I don’t think so. 

I once asked a colleague of mine what he would do differently if he could do it over again. And without a heartbeat, the answer came back - nothing. I would do everything exactly the same way again. 

And I just couldn’t think that was expressing great wisdom.

It’s one thing to strive to live a life we don’t regret and quite another to always insist the life we have chosen has no regrets in it. 

I recently spoke with Dan Pink on The Greg McKeown Podcast, where he shared that regret provides us with moments of growth. When we take the time to study our regrets, they become like the negative of a photograph, the exact opposite of what we are trying to design. 

There is valuable data deeply ingrained in the regrets of our lives for what we are supposed to do. Our regrets can guide us - if we listen to them.

Here is the regret equation that I think matters most:

Regret + Hope + Action = Change

Here’s how to use this equation and put regret to work in your life: 

1. Name a specific regret. Look at the gap between the regret and what you wished you would have done.
2. Realize there is time and space to change. Perhaps you can’t undo your past, but you can use past mistakes to become better in the future. 
3. Take immediate action. Use the space you have to reorganize and reprioritize. Don’t delay. This can lead to future regret. 

Whatever has happened to you in life, whatever hardship, whatever pain, whatever regret, these things pale compared to the power you have to choose what to do now. 

It’s not too late. Let’s get to it.

Listen

The Greg McKeown Podcast

“Not knowing what's bothering us is what's bothering us. And when we help people to be able to name what's going on inside of them, then we help them to feel heard.” 

Have you ever needed to change the results in a situation where there were lots of things you could not change? It has long been thought that to completely transform morale and performance, you have to have the power to change everything, but this is wrong. What we know now is that there is a smaller, much more doable way to achieve results.

Discover how you can achieve change, through the disproportionate power of language. Listen here. 

Learn

How to live with your regrets

Regret is an emotion most of us would rather live without. But that, psychologists say, would be a very bad idea. Despite its uncomfortableness, regret plays a critical role in our lives when we approach it in the right way. In this article, explore the four main categories of regret identified by bestselling author Dan Pink and discover how you can use regret to build a better version of yourself. You can read the article here. 

Weekly Wisdom

“Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.” ― Elbert Hubbard

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