Life without regrets. For my benefit

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 make the right choice! It seems that anything is possible. But as the years go by, the opportunities diminish. We miss opportunities.

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, since 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 chose the best option from 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 not having divorced my first husband earlier: although we quarreled endlessly and he was very rude to me, every time I kept telling myself that he had a kind soul and just needed 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 before. "

Any choice we make is a rejection of other paths. “If earlier they talked about the point of bifurcation, where the system moves to a new level, then 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. 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, and we 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 returns us 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 do not always succeed, but if they are even made, they can save us from much more bitter regrets, about which nurse Bronnie Wea, 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.

The five main regrets relate to missed opportunities to be yourself and love loved ones. "I should have more confidence in my intuition, follow my desires and express dissatisfaction, 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 regretting the lost relationship with old friends. Finally, we get angry with ourselves for not being strong enough and afraid of change.

For my benefit

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

But are there opportunities that have been lost forever? 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. - To fly 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 start sharing observations on social networks, building models of rockets, writing science fiction stories, composing 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 \u200b\u200b"reverse 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 regard 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 has happened to us before.

Meditation: the idea of \u200b\u200bgoing 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?”, “How would my life, if I could satisfy all my desires without thinking about costs? "

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

We all have what is stored in our bank of the past, what we want to fix, do differently.

As we get older, we learn and grow. But this does not mean that we should regret what we did before we learned to do it differently. If we had not gone through this experience, we might not have developed into the strong and knowledgeable person that we are today.

I suggest that you get rid of negative thoughts about the past and start living a life that does not make us feel sorry.

Here is a list of 40 things you can do to practice a life without regret:

1. Understand that it's okay to make mistakes. Just make sure you learn from them, forgive yourself, and move on.

2. Make health and wellbeing a top priority and always take care of yourself.

3. Follow your own path, not one that others impose on you.

4. Find humor in life and laugh heartily.

5. Relax and move with the flow of life, without fear of change.

6. Be adventurous by trying new things and taking big risks.

7. Have intellectual curiosity and express yourself creatively.

8. Try to find happiness with different people.

9. Make sure that other people's opinions do not influence you too much.

10. Try not to judge people before you meet them.

11. Be grateful for what you have now.

12. Live without envy.

14. Don't try to change someone.

15. Enjoy the movement, not just your destination.

16. Know that happiness is greater than any bank account.

17. Manage negative thoughts so they don't contribute to the outcome of your life.

18. Use your energy wisely.

19. Be bold. Find the courage to change what needs to be changed.

20. Love your job. If you don't love what you do, find out what you love and take the first step towards this life.

21. Get rid of discontent.

22. Consider problems from different perspectives to find the right solution.

23. Strengthen your independence.

24. Be ready to change your point of view, take a broader view of life.

25. Don't waste time talking with people you don't like.

26. Become the person with whom you would like to spend the rest of your life.

27. Be honest with yourself and others.

28. Treat people with respect and compassion.

29. Live in the present.

30. Try not to procrastinate.

31. Never hold grudges.

32. Go on your fears by constantly expanding your comfort zone.

33. Spend time with people who make you happy. But at the same time, don't depend on other people.

34. Don't let anyone or anything hold you back from your true desires.

35. Be yourself.

36. Be an active participant in life, not an observer.

37. Do what you love to do.

38. Write a list of goals and achieve them step by step. Do not give up.

39. Do something every day that makes you proud of yourself.

40. And always keep moving forward.

I know this list seems pretty long and you can do a lot from it, but start with a few points.

Put them to the test and see that you are now living without regret.

Source -

Most people by 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 life they have passed, 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 in such a way 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. You may find better 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 certain things and people, but this will only prevent you from living a real life without regrets. Maybe the person you didn't like could change your life for the better.

4. Share your success

Often, your own success brings you a sense of happiness, but 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 turns you into a negative and angry person, directing its energy to 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 let 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 look for joy in every aspect and moment of their lives. Of course, it takes courage, but such a life style will open up 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.

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 happened is past. But life is finite. Someday all the same, the moment will come 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 people have something to regret already at a fairly young age. AND 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, such as it should have been, according to the personality.

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 people most regret 5 things:

Broken, lost, missed romantic relationships. When it did not succeed, did not work, or did not want to make enough efforts to keep love, often later it happens to regret it. Relationships are work. You don't need to let them go by chance 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 led an inactive lifestyle, did not pay enough attention, did not take good care of their bodies, ignored 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 delays brain aging by as much as 10 years!

It is impossible to insure against mistakes, and it is not necessary! No matter how much sorrow, 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, and the general orientation of the individual.

How to live without regrets?

To learn how to live so as not to regret anything and not to regret later, you need to ask yourself now question: "When I become 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 a 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 a dishonorable act.

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.

In order not to do what you have to regret you need to be able:

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 an active life cared about 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!

You will find a list of them at the bottom of the page.

Regret can be a powerful barrier to living the life you want to live. But it's never too late to change everything in life. You can learn to value every day without burdening yourself with a past full of regrets. Learn how to love the path you are walking, exploring your desires, taking steps towards a new future, and letting go of past mistakes.

Steps

Part 1

Open your life path

Make a list of your death wishes. Research shows that people tend to regret more of what did not dothan what they did. With this in mind, you should make a list of what you want to do before you die. It can be a “small” adventure like skydiving, or something serious and “big” like children or career advancement.

Define your core values. It isn't always obvious what makes us happy. Take the time to reflect on what you want out of life. Some people find meaning in the joys and difficulties of teaching; others thrive in the competitive and creative business world. It would be helpful to ask yourself the question, "Will this action or direction lead to feelings of regret?"

Test yourself to determine your strengths. If you are unsure which direction to take in life, or what really makes sense to you, take this career, personality, and disposition test. The test will help you discover your strengths and compare them to your potential life direction:

Talk to a career counselor or personal trainer. People in these professions are committed to helping clients discover their innate talents and overcome obstacles. This can be especially helpful if you feel frustrated that you don't know which direction to go in life. There are many resources on the Internet to help you find a personal trainer.

List your life obstacles. Many people know deep down what they want, but they have trouble achieving those goals and dreams. Often, for example, it happens that people regret not following their own desires due to pressure from other people. Knowing what is holding you back from reaching your full potential is a very important step.

Part 2

Be active in life

Repair broken relationships. If you're having trouble with a close friend, significant other, or family member, constructive communication can help. Follow the steps below to reestablish this connection, constructive communication includes:
Set goals for yourself. It is not always easy for us to achieve the highest aspirations in life. Use goal setting technique to help you move step by step. Here are some tips on how to set realistic and achievable goals:
- Set measurable goals. It will give you a sense of achievement and help keep you motivated as you see progress.
- Set realistic but challenging goals. Try to find a balance so that achieving your goal is difficult, but not impossible. If the goals are too easy, you may get bored and not grow. If your goals are too difficult to achieve, you may feel frustrated and give up.
- Goals should be flexible. A well-established routine is fine, but if your goals are too tight and restrictive, you may feel discouraged if you don't achieve them. It is also better to give up on the goal sometimes than to drain yourself.
Develop your ways of expression. Self-expression and creativity are integral parts of a life without regrets. These aspects can manifest themselves in a wide variety of ways, from the more conventional (music or painting) to the less traditional (social work or computer programming). Creative expression is not limited to art, it can manifest itself in any area where a person has found his passion. Here are some steps you can take:
- Try to fully feel what is happening. Slow down and be aware of what is happening around you.
- Show your own essence. Be more careful with external cues from other people and cultures because you have to feel, think and do more for yourself.
- Be honest. Be honest with yourself and others will share their secrets with you. Honesty will also give you the opportunity to grow.
Keep your choices in check. You may think it's always better to have more choices than fewer, but research shows that this is actually not the case. When you have fewer options, you’ll worry less about which opportunities you gave up when you’ve already made a decision. On the other hand, if your decision can be reversed and replayed, and you have many more options, the chances are high that you will uselessly torment yourself with thoughts of the decision and you will have less energy for other activities.
- For example, if you are considering a post-secondary institution of higher education, narrow your choices to just a few options instead of applying to twenty different universities.
Focus on experience. Research shows that people are more likely to regret buying things and not spending or daring to experience an experience. Psychology shows that materialism, or the pursuit of “things,” is not the key to happiness. Experiences and experiences create long-term memories, while “things” deteriorate, deteriorate and lose their brightness, novelty, and attractiveness.
- For example, you might be better off spending your money on a family vacation or a trip to Europe rather than a new slightly larger TV.
Live in the present. One of the greatest obstacles to happiness is the habit of living in the past. Mindfulness practice teaches you to appreciate the present moment and be fully present in it, because it is in the present that your life unfolds. Learn to focus on the present:
- Practice mindful breathing for at least five minutes every day.
- Use a word or image to bring yourself back to the present. It could be a flower, the word "peace", or whatever works for you.
- Engage in mindful activities like yoga or a walk in which you pay close attention to your steps.

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