Everyone has regrets, right? There’s all that debt you’ve run up on your credit cards. There’s the effort you DID NOT put in to finish the paper, get the project completed on time, get a promotion. And there’s the laundry, the dusting, the thank-you notes you haven’t gotten around to just yet. So you beat yourself up. You say you should have. You feel rotten. Course, you probably don’t do things any differently the next time, giving you plenty more fodder for Mother Regret to stand over you and berate you: you fool, you simpleton, you dummy!
Here’s a Gail Bulletin: You’re wasting your energy if you’re spending time visiting with Mother Regret! Get over yourself and get on with your life.
But, Gail, all those stupid things I’ve done… shouldn’t I feel like a dope?
Sure you should. If you’ve done dopey things, then you’re justified in calling yourself a dope. But wasting good energy wallowing in regret is counter-productive. After all, the things you are regretting are things past. You can’t do a thing about them. So beating yourself up over your mistakes over and over and over brings you no closer to where you want to be. (Feeling like a dope, on the other hand, will hopefully keep you from making the same mistake again.)
Made some mistakes? Who hasn’t? And why do you think yours are worse than anyone else’s? As Warren Buffet says, “All saints have a past; all sinners have a future.”
The first thing you have to do is stop beating yourself up. Lamenting the mistakes we’ve made doesn’t help us to see ourselves as successful, which is a part of becoming successful. So instead on focusing on all the debt you’ve created, set your eyes on the payments you are making to whittle that debt away.
While you can’t do anything about your mistakes made, you can learn from them. If you couldn’t resist making purchases because your credit card was sitting cozily in your wallet, then accept that you have no self-control and leave the credit card at home.
Making a list of your regrets, with notes on strategies not to repeat those mistakes, can be a great way to shut Mother Regret up! Grab a pad and pencil and jot down the things you regret. Now take all the new things you’re going to do and transfer them to your Strategies for Success List. Burn the Regrets List.
Many people regret the things in their lives that they never did. My mother always said, “It isn’t the things we do in life that bring the most regret, it’s the things we never did. So do it all.” I took her advice and regret very little. There are things that hurt, things that I wish had come out differently, but I don’t regret them. They were lesson I learned and grew from.
If you have things you wish you had done, it’s time to make The Mother of All To Do Lists so you don’t end up with Mother Regret whispering your failings, your chicken-heartedness, your procrastination in your ear. Write them down and then get busy doing them. It isn’t too late; not until you’re dead!
As you move forward, stay focused on today. Looking too far into the future can be intimidating. Looking over your shoulder at where you’ve been is just navel-gazing. Be in the present. What are you going to do today, and keep doing every today, to make the life you want?
This may mean swapping some bad habits you’ve had for some better ones. If you’ve habitually used the bank machine as a wallet, racking up wicked bank charges every month, then today you will start planning how you spend your money. This month you will go to the bank machine only once a week – or twice a month – whatever works for you. And you’ll only carry as much money as you plan to spend, so you can’t use it all up on a whim.
Addicted to eating out? Today you’ll make lunch. Addicted to shopping? Start using a Wish List and only buying what’s on the list.
Today’s the day to wipe clean the slate and begin the rest of your life. Will you allow Mother Regret to make you miserable? Or will you take control of the rest of your life and do only those things that keep you in the zone – the place you want to be?
FYI: The new Getting To Debt Free page is up. Look at the top right side of the blog for a link. Or you can get to it from my home page. Emma’s Story is the first up. She was pretty quick off the mark because JD and I only got it all finished last night at about 6 p.m. Please note that if you post a response to the instructional first blog from me, it will be deleted. You must use the process described to get your story on the site. Thanks, and enjoy!
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