A way to live your life without regret. How to live a life without regrets. Control your negative thoughts

Correct thoughts that help a person move forward in life, create, create something new, without stopping for a moment, are able to prevent the potential danger of regret. Everyone is familiar with the phrase "If only ...", which people say when they understand what they have missed in their lives. Not only in the movies, but also in real life, you can see how a person changes when, for example, he is diagnosed with a fatal disease.

Knowing that there is very little left to live, patients strive to have time to do everything that they have postponed for many years or simply doubted the need for some desired action. Looking back at their life and comparing it with the last weeks or months, such people begin to understand that they would have done much more if they only knew about the approach of death.

Life is short. But, as a rule, a person realizes this too late, when he can only regret the lost time. Approaching the end of life, involuntarily everyone thinks about its beginning. So let this start be today. You need to forget about the past, about your age and just start living. This article explores nine ways you can prevent destructive excuses, apologies, and, most importantly, regrets from going through.

Choose your own path

You need to stop living based on the opinions of other people. Stop living for them. It's time to start your own journey in which you will be yourself. There are many cases where a talented creative person cannot fully express himself, realize his ideas and dreams. As a rule, this happens due to the influence of other people, as well as due to their own fears.

This needs to be overcome. When you need to go against the opinions of others, do it. Be confident in yourself, in your actions. Swim against the tide, if your essence requires it. Do what you are interested in.You need to allow others to live their petty lives, to suffer from minor problems, not allowing the same to happen to you. You don't need to let everything go by itself. You yourself must determine your path, not giving your own future in the hands of other people.

Reasonable risk

Life is not long enough to remain an amateur for many years. You can live all the allotted time sitting in the nest. And you can experience the greatness and freedom of flight. So spread your wings and take off. Feel the power and beauty of your capabilities. Feel your potential. Otherwise, regret at a later age will inevitably overtake you.

It will be regret that you never opened your wings. You don't need to think too much before taking the next step. It is only important to try to do everything at the highest possible level, while you get the necessary experience. Over time, this experience will allow you to become a true professional.

Believe in yourself

In the absence of any difficulties and problems, it is very difficult for a person to change. Any "shake-up" contributes to the growth and development of the individual. When you set a goal for yourself, you may find that the plan to achieve it seems daunting. The main thing is to take the first step. The second and third steps will already be much easier. So, gradually, you will move closer and closer to your goal. You have to believe that you can overcome anything. This unconditional belief in yourself will surely lead to success.

A new day is the next step

You need to be able to withstand all the ups and downs that come your way. Everyone lives and learns at the same time. A person is imperfect, therefore mistakes and failures are inevitable. It is important to remember, however, that you are doing everything for the sake of what you love. Therefore, the possible trials that will bring a feeling of pain are nothing compared to the unforgettable moments of joy and love. Go forward despite pain and setbacks. The inner strength, thanks to which you got to the present moment, will be able to guide you the rest of the way.

No - thoughts of disappointment

What has been done and experienced in the past should not in any way interfere with acting now. Do not allow sad negative experiences to limit you in anything, shatter hopes and destroy faith. Life is really not perfect. There are many things in the world that can cause disappointment. You should always remember: everything is done for the best. Therefore, if what is happening is different from what you expected it, keep in mind that everything can be much better than it seems at first glance.

Here and now

Dreams of a different time and place should take up a minimal part of your life. All people want to be happy. But for some reason, many expect their happiness from somewhere outside. As a rule, at a young age, people live in the future, dreaming of their own family, a good job, and so on. And in old age, a person is inclined to live in the past, believing that happiness remained there.

Both options are wrong. Life and happiness are only here and now. Realizing this fact is an important step towards happy life no regrets and no war with yourself. There are reasons to smile at this very moment. Right now, you have many opportunities. So do not lose them, daydreaming about what is not.

Think positive

Positive thinking is this: you have to think about what you have, not about what is not, or what you are losing. The cause of suffering, feeling unhappy, often lies not in the situation, but in the attitude towards it. A day without laughing and doing good deeds can be considered lost. Even if unforeseen difficulties and problems arise, there are always various small opportunities, thanks to which you can make your day better.

Share your love

Sooner or later, each of us will have to say goodbye to loved ones. The eternal problem of man is lack of time. No matter how long you live with your close loved ones, there will always be a shortage of time. Show your love, share it while you can. Do not hesitate to start sincere conversations with loved ones, share intimate. Otherwise, losing loved ones, you will regret the unsaid.

Goodbye for a new greeting

Goodbyes are a gift that helps you take life's steps. If someone leaves you, say goodbye to that person. Don't beg him to stay. Accept the fact of separation as a necessity for future benefits. Just understand that the time has come for the changes in your life that are needed for further development and personal growth.

For this to happen, know that every goodbye carries with it a new "hello." The fleeting pain of parting cannot be compared with the future joy of a new meeting, acquaintances. There is no need to be sad about the loss. Let the person go.

Now try to understand all of the above tips. It is very important to keep this information in mind at all times. Only through this awareness can you protect your life from negative experiences, fears and regrets. Try to answer the questions: what do you want not to regret on some day of your life? What should be done to avoid regretting it? Do it today. Do it now.

In our youth, we believe that a great future awaits us, and our exploits will remain in history. We will be smarter than our parents and will be able not to repeat their mistakes in creating a family, raising children, in a career ... We will do right choice! It seems that anything is possible. But as the years go by, the opportunities diminish. We are missing out on auspicious occasions.

And then the time comes for the first big regrets: "I should have ...", "I would have been able to ...". We are haunted by the feeling that we could have done differently. But this is hardly true, as the choice of solutions is limited. This is evidenced by one of the "basic presuppositions", that is, the basic assumptions of neurolinguistic programming.

“Any behavior is the best choice from the options available at a given time,” emphasizes family psychologist and NLP master Elena Ulitova. “In the future, we may have more opportunities - due to changes in circumstances or our beliefs. But in the past we have chosen the best way of those that we had then. "

Only time

And also an irresistible force acts on us, forcing us to embellish the past and quickly forget the state of mind in which we made this or that decision. “I should have married Sergei! He is so kind and caring, ”40-year-old Elena tells herself. And she does not remember that 15 years ago she was so in love with Peter that she did not think of anyone else.

Moreover, our “I” has a complex and contradictory structure; In pursuing one of our values, we ignore others.

We experience everything at once, for the first time and without preparation. As if the actor was playing his part in a play without any rehearsal.

At 42, Galina, despite the fact that she likes life in marriage, as well as teaching, constantly returns to the same topic: “I think that maybe I went to physics and mathematics in vain, - this is what the parents wanted, both mathematicians, they took turns coaching me. But I liked literature no less, and I certainly had the ability: my essays were read more than once in front of the class.

And I also regret that I did not divorce my first husband earlier: although we quarreled endlessly and he was very rude to me, every time I repeated to myself that his soul was kind and you just need to be patient. My parents said the same thing, and I didn't want to disappoint them. But I became much happier when I got divorced. And ten years later I met a man whom I fell in love with and who became my second husband. But all this could have happened earlier. "

Any choice we make is a rejection of other paths. “If earlier they talked about the point of bifurcation, where the system transitions to a new level, today the term“ polyfurcation ”is used: we are talking about a whole range of options,” says cultural scientist Nina Yagodintseva. But realizing the multiplicity of perspectives that open up, we also understand that we will not be able to try them one after another. The room for doubt is also expanding.

“There is no way to check which solution is better,” notes Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, “because there is no comparison. We experience everything at once, for the first time and without preparation. It’s as if the actor was playing his part in the play without any rehearsal. ”

The road to a living heart

“I should have continued my studies”, “I should have spent more time with my parents and children”, “Oh, if I knew that ...”, “Why was I so frivolous?”. Perhaps there is more than just regret behind these questions and thoughts: an attempt to return to the true meaning of his life, the search for which Carl Gustav Jung called "a specifically human need."

A similar condition is described by Alexander Green in the philosophical novel "Running on the Waves" (though not referring it, unlike Jung, to middle age): "Sooner or later, in old age or at the dawn of strength, the Unfulfilled calls us we look around, trying to understand where the call came from. Then, waking up in the middle of our world, painfully recollecting and dear every day, we peer into life, trying with all our being to discern whether the Unfulfilled is not beginning to come true? Is his image not clear? Don't you just need to reach out to grab and hold his faintly flickering features? "

There are not many points of choice in life, but we can accumulate the potential to act more effectively at the next such point.

This experience can hardly be called pleasant, in truth, it is often painful, “but it brings us back to ourselves, to the living heart of our“ I, ”notes Elena Ulitova. Jung talks about trying to shed social masks, return to wholesomeness and, with luck, embody it in social life.

These attempts are not always successful, but if they are even made, they can save us from much more bitter regrets, about which nurse Bronnie Wea, the author of the book "Five Regrets of the Dying," wrote: when caring for hopeless patients in hospice, she asked them about than they regret most.

Five major regrets relate to missed opportunities to be yourself and love loved ones. "I should have trusted my intuition more, follow my desires and express discontent, and not behave the way the environment expected of me." Then: "It was necessary to work less and devote more time to relatives and friends." Then: "I should have shown my love to the people around me, more often to say" I love you "to my husband and children."

The fourth place on the list is the regret of the lost relationship with old friends. Finally, we get angry with ourselves for not being strong enough and afraid of change.

For my sake

Optimists, with their positive perception of themselves and the world, have a better life than perfectionists, who are always dissatisfied because of the inadequacy of their terribly demanding "ideal self". But regret, as with all our emotions, has a benefit: if we make an effort to get rid of our automatic looping thoughts, we can learn from what we think of as failure. “There are no mistakes, there is a feedback,” reminds one more postulate of NLP Elena Ulitova. It remains only to decipher it.

“Regrets indicate that something valuable to us is in the past,” says Nina Yagodintseva. - It's sad, but thanks to this we can see the present more clearly, appreciate what we have here and now, and rejoice. But sometimes regrets are related to the fact that at the decisive moment we passed, did not act to the maximum of our abilities. There are not many points of choice in life, but we can accumulate the potential to act more effectively at the next such point. "

But there are opportunities that have been missed irrevocably? In the film What Else Men Talk About, the watchman recalls how in childhood he wanted to become an astronaut ... “If our desire continues to live inside our regrets, then it can be brought into the light of consciousness and look for a way to realize it in the current circumstances,” Elena Ulitova is convinced. - Flying into space at 60 years old, most likely, will not succeed, this is so, and it remains to take it for granted. But why not ask the question later: how can I make my dream of space come true now? "

Let's start getting acquainted with research, buy a telescope and begin to share observations on social networks, build models of rockets, write science fiction stories, and compose space music.

3 techniques to no longer regret the past

Create a better present: we judge our past based on what we are experiencing in the present. Events do not change, but our attitude towards them - yes. The idea of "backward time" was proposed by the philosopher Pavel Florensky in his work "Iconostasis": "Time can really be ... turned from the future to the past, from effects to causes." We see in the past the premise of the present. Therefore, if our goals are achieved, then even past failures we consider as hardening, a test of strength, an experience that gave the concept of compassion ...

The present is in our power, and by choosing our current path, we can change the meaning of everything that happened to us before.

Meditation: the idea of going backward in time can make you dizzy. Fortunately, there are other, more gentle ways. For example, according to psychotherapist Christophe André (author of the bestselling Art and Meditation. 24 Lessons That Transform Life Day by Day, Mindfulness Meditation can help us: its meaning is to make efforts to live in the present, not in the past, as often as possible, because the past is a time of regret.

A wish list: you can also try bucket list. This phrase comes from the phrase "kick the bucket", which literally translates as "kick the bucket", but means "stretch your legs." It is best known for Rob Reiner's film Until I Played in the Box, in which the characters of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman discuss desires. To find our own, we should ask ourselves questions: “What is really important to me?”, “What would I do if I knew that I had one day / six months / year left to live?” life, if I could satisfy all my desires without thinking about costs? "

But be that as it may, reflections on missed opportunities are inherent in us by nature itself and are an inevitable component of the human psyche.

How often in your life does it happen that some objective circumstances force you to postpone meetings with friends or relatives? Do you have a feeling that you constantly do not have time to do something important?

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, weighed down by the burden of various obligations, we often cannot find time for what we really want to do. Trying to do everything at once, we stay late at work or even refuse vacation. As a result, many people regret that they set their priorities incorrectly at the time.

What are the consequences of the wrong choice of priorities? According to psychologists, they are rather sad. And this is what, over the years, people tend to regret the most.

Failed romantic relationship

According to Gail Saltz, a professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital, many regret not saving. The reason for many breakups is over-preoccupation with a career. Often, in order to maintain a relationship, one of the partners has to make certain sacrifices. But not everyone is ready for these sacrifices.

Nowadays, many people think that giving up a career for the sake of another person is unwise. And they do not refuse. As a result, these people really succeed, but regret that they did not try to maintain a relationship at one time.
Gail Saltz

Lost friends

Neal Roese, author of If Only: How to Turn Regret Into Opportunity, notes that the loss of a friend is often as painful as the loss of a loved one.

When you spend too little time with your friends during your days and nights at work, you set yourself up for subsequent regrets. Rose states that many surveys show that people are very worried about lost friendships because the more time passes, the harder it is to find a true friend.

Leading a sedentary lifestyle

It’s very easy to kick yourself off by sitting at your desk all day and skipping your evening workouts because you’re so tired. However, neglecting exercise not only affects your overall health but also your productivity. And as you get older, making time for it becomes even more important.

Studies have shown that regular exercise can slow brain aging (sometimes as long as 10 years). According to Dr. Saltz, young people are well aware of what will follow the refusal of training, but do not attach much importance to it.

Gail Saltz

Alas, this is not the case. Therefore, it is worth taking care of your health now.

Lack of attention to health

In the same way as in the case of training, we forget about the need to monitor our health. It is very important not to ignore medical examinations, preventive visits to the doctor and get tested on time. If you do not pay attention to this, you risk not noticing important warning signals that your body is sending you. In this case, doctors will not be able to provide you with timely assistance. With many diseases, it is extremely important how quickly they are diagnosed. A favorable outcome of treatment depends on this.

Exposure to stress

According to experts in the field of stress management, in today's conditions of overload and constant pressure from various stress factors, many people suffer from the consequences of not paying attention to these pressures.

It has long been proven that prolonged stress leads to various mental disorders. Therefore, it is very important to learn before they damage your health.

Psychologists advise taking the time to analyze all the stressors affecting you. You can do it yourself or get the help of a psychotherapist. Then you will have to make an effort on yourself, as if you were going to go on a diet or quit smoking, and do everything possible to minimize the influence of these factors.

Try stress management techniques such as meditation, exercise, and breathing. Take every opportunity to reduce the effects of stress on your body.

Making decisions driven by fear

Research by clinical psychologists shows that people are more likely to regret missed opportunities. They worry that, fearing failure, criticism or other negative consequences, they have abandoned something really important. Instead of taking risks and following their dreams or listening to the voice of intuition, people accept those that affect their entire future life.

In addition, under the influence of fear, many tend to compromise their principles. For example, in fear of losing their jobs, people often act against their beliefs about morality, hard work, and professionalism. As time passes, they most often have to regret these actions.

Of course, it is quite difficult to “spread straws” and develop a strategy of behavior that would help to avoid regret. However, now you know what most people regret, and you can try not to repeat their mistakes and set your life priorities correctly. And here's what Neil Rose advises:

We all regret something. We can forgive ourselves some mistakes. We resort to rationalization and find reasons to explain our behavior. But there are such regrets that are very difficult to live with. So just imagine yourself as a deep old man living out his last days... What would you regret the most? Perhaps answering this question will help you make the right choice and live your life differently.

Psychologists say: to be happy, you need to live here and now, enjoy life and love it. Time is a relative concept and, in fact, a person lives all the time only in present moment, it makes no sense to look back, what was, then passed. But life is finite. Someday all the same, there will come a moment when all of it (for a single individual) will be in the past. How to live your life so that you do not regret what you have done or, on the contrary, what has not happened?

Top 5 things people most often regret

The sooner a person asks the question “How to live life so as not to regret later?”, The sooner he will be able to correct the mistakes of the past or accept and let them go if nothing can be fixed.

No matter how old a person is, he already has a past. Many have something to regret already at a fairly young age. A youth- the time when a person commits the greatest number of life mistakes. The older he gets, the wiser and more careful he makes decisions.

While a person is young, he tries to drive away disturbing thoughts from himself, such as: "I have done or am doing something that I will regret later." In adolescence, youth, and even in adulthood, it still seems that the whole life is ahead. For some, the understanding that there is still so much to come is colored in positive tones ("I still have time for everything! I can do everything!"), While others - in negative ones ("I still have to endure all this and suffer for so long!"). But both the first and second cases are an illusion.

A life- this is what is happening here and now, and not a specific time period. As a result, a person measures his life not by the years lived, but by what happened. events... It seems that when life was boring or sad, it did not exist at all, but the real "live" a life- this is a successful, happy life, the way it should have been, in the opinion of the individual.

Various scientists (psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, philosophers) in different years have studied the issue of the emergence of regret about the past. Recent research by an American journalist, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Gail Saltz showed that most of all people regret 5 things:

Broken, lost, missed romantic relationships. When it did not succeed, it did not work out, or did not want to make enough efforts to preserve love, it often happens that later it happens to regret it. Relationships are work. You don't need to let them go or ignore them, believing that everything is already fine.

G. Saltz notes that people often missed the chance to become happy in their personal lives because of the desire to build a career.

Lack of friendship... As people get older, it becomes harder to find a true friend, so people often regret not finding, looking for, or losing their best friend.
Neglecting health and sports... People regret that they were inactive, did not pay enough attention, did not take good care of their bodies, ignored the signals of illness, and did not receive treatment on time. Health is very difficult to regain, but not so difficult to maintain.

It is important to understand that regular physical activity allows you to maintain youth and health, not only bodily, physical, but also mental, that is, psychological. And this is already a scientifically proven fact! In March 2016, scientists discovered that regular exercise delayed brain aging by as much as 10 years!

It is impossible to insure against mistakes, and it is not necessary! No matter how much sadness, grief, disappointment they carry, they add up experience... And experience, whatever it may be, is always useful, it teaches, teaches and helps to form life principles, priorities, goals, attitude towards oneself, others, the world, in general, the orientation of the personality.

How to live without regrets?

To learn to live so as not to regret anything and not to regret in the future, you need to ask yourself now question:"When I am a deep old man, what will I regret from what I have already done or not done?" The answer will surely be found.

There are not so many life circumstances that would be difficult to change. Sometimes, in order to correct the mistake of your whole life, it is enough to ask for forgiveness or forgive yourself, say something important or finally hear what another says, leave or return, act reasonably, honestly,
fair, kind, or refrain from dishonorable deeds.

Based on the five most common human regrets, it can be concluded that important:

cherish, cherish and work on friendly, love, family relationships;
take care of your health, lead an active lifestyle;
get rid of anxieties, worries and fears, increase stress resistance, learn to take risks, be brave, self-confident.

To avoid doing what you have to regret you need to be able to:

listen to yourself,
understand what is "mine" and what is "not mine",
do not go and do not fight against yourself, for the sake of someone,
love yourself and people, be kind to the world.

Less often they recall their life with regret. people:

creatively approaching its creation (starting with setting their own goals and ending with a creative approach in raising a child),
striving for self-expression, self-realization,
those who led active life, took care of physical health and psychological well-being,
solving all their problems in time,
who knew how to be friends and love.

Of course, learning to live so as not to regret anything is a difficult task and is unlikely to be 100% feasible, but learning to avoid those serious mistakes that you will later have to bitterly regret and repent of is possible!

Most people, towards the end of their lives, often regret some of the actions they have committed. And this is quite natural: hardly anyone wants to lie on their deathbed, looking back at the past life, and understand that some tasks remained unfinished, dreams and aspirations - unfulfilled, and ambitions - ignored. We live only one life, and at the end we feel insanely sorry for what we missed. Try to start living your life so that you don't have any regrets!

1. Be happy

Happiness is the basic condition for living without regrets. Try to make yourself happier! Happiness can be found in the simplest and most subtle things, in the most difficult and unpleasant situations. And it is in your power!

2. Develop creative thinking

Cultivate your own creativity and try to find alternative solutions to all your problems. Perhaps you will find more effective methods and techniques to help you stay positive in all circumstances.

3. Never judge people by how they look.

Don't believe the first visual impression. Of course, everyone can have prejudices against some things and people, but this will only prevent you from living. real life no regrets. Maybe the person you didn't like could change your life for the better.

4. Share your success

While your own success often makes you feel happy, lasting and true happiness always comes when you share your success with others.

5. Laugh

People who laugh happily live longer. Thanks to laughter, you relax and breathe deeply. Let yourself laugh more and more!

6. Accept people for who they are

Never try to change people who don't want to change. You will not succeed, and even if you succeed, it will not make them happy. You can help, but never force someone to do something. People who are not particularly happy with their lives can change, but in due time.

7. Don't hold grudges

Feelings of dislike and hatred take too much effort and time. In addition, it destroys and transforms you into a negative and angry person, channeling its energies into meaningless feelings.

8. Don't demand perfection from yourself.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. Try, try and don't be afraid of failure and failure! Mistakes are life lessons learned and invaluable.

9. Take care of others

Life without regrets is also about caring for other people: relatives, friends, acquaintances and strangers. Appreciate that you have these people.

10. Be positive

Success and achievement are the result of harnessing the power of positive thinking. Save your energy only for positive emotions and do not waste it worrying, angry, or discouraged.

11. Expand your horizons

If you are trying to live without regrets, you should always strive for new information and knowledge. When you don't understand something, start exploring this area, expand your horizons and learn something new. Train yourself to read at least one book a month.

12. Be confident

Always be bold in your actions. Confidence, conviction and courage will allow you to live a full and fulfilling life, since you will be always ready for any turn of fate and any ups and downs of life.

13. Control your negative thoughts.

Believe it or not, even those who live life without regrets sometimes suffer from their own negativity, but they know how to masterfully turn it into a positive one.

14. Allow yourself to be mentally free.

Never allow pressure on you from the outside and dictate conditions to you, because freedom should be not only physical, but also mental. Listening to other people can and should be, but then still make your own informed decisions and follow in the right direction.

15. Go only your own way

To go your own way means not to act on orders and not to do what you are persistently told or even told to do. Your path is your expression of freedom.

16. Be honest

Life without regrets is impossible to live with the help of lies and attempts to close your eyes to anything. If you have flaws, for example, start fighting them. The path of self-knowledge and self-improvement, by the way, is very motivating. Most importantly, do not lie to yourself.

17. Strive for adventure

Brave and adventurous people know how to find joy in every aspect and moment of their life. Of course, it takes courage, but such a lifestyle will open you up to a world of completely new experiences and sensations, as well as achievements and achievements.

18. Be independent

Become a self-sufficient, independent and self-reliant person. Remember that you can only rely on one person - yourself. When you understand this, you will never feel lonely again.

19. Do something every day.

Do something daily to improve this world. Even the smallest gesture of kindness and compassion can make your day happy.

20. Live now

Live now, forget about the past and do not spoil your nerves because of the future. People who spend too much time thinking about the days to come tend to miss a lot in the present.

It might be helpful to read: