How to live with NO REGRETS

Hey, beautiful, brave hearts, Welcome back to the bravehearted woman, courage, confidence, and mindset mastery for you as you're living your bold, brave midlife. You are living bold and brave, right? Of course, you are. You're bravehearted woman.

Today, we're going to talk about this thing called regret. You know, I often hear instances of regret as I meet with people. It's very common. It's a very powerful and negative emotion. It's an unfortunate and uncomfortable feeling. Really, we get plagued with this whispering voice that says, you should have done it differently. If only I could do it over. If only I had made a different choice. I've bemoaned that.

How about you? I've thought about what I could have been or what I could have done. In fact, one study recently on regret said that of the participants in this study over a 7-day period. That over a 7-day period, they regretted a third of all their decisions. What that means is that out of every 10 decisions, there were 3.333 of those decisions they wish they hadn't made what we perceived to be the wrong choice. Whether it was doing something that we wished we hadn't done, Or that we didn't do something that we wish we did.

I've had a lot of regret over things that I wished I would have done that I didn't do. Now, some regret is just inconsequential. It's just mild. It's fleeting. It doesn't last very long. It's here now. Then we kind of can get over it quickly. But some regret is deeply profound and we perseverate over it and it continues to plague us and we grieve and we're sorrowful over to the place where we almost get paralyzed that we wish we would have done something differently or we wish life would have presented something different and this type of regret will haunt you. Not only does it haunt you, but it can create anxiety and depression and self-reproach, feeling sad all the time, having a sense of loss over what you could have done or what you should have done, and you just start ruminating over it all the time. Over and over again, this obsessive thinking, well, I know that regret is difficult to avoid, but we can live our life in such a way that when we do. We set ourselves up to have less regret or even the way we cultivate our mindset, that when we do feel some regret, we process it, learn how to release it, and then keep going.

So, I want to give you a few pointers today. But first of all, just know that regret comes to all of us. It's difficult to avoid, you're going to feel regret. So when you do allow yourself to experience fully that emotion of regret, don't try to avoid it. Don't be evasive or on the flip side. Don't dwell on it excessively. But let yourself feel what you're feeling. When you start to feel, you can start to heal. You can forgive yourself. You can say, okay, this thing has come to pass. Not to stay. Let me move through this emotion of regret. And if your actions have caused harm to someone else, then make amends where you can endeavor to repair a broken relationship.

If you regret something, you can't change it. You can't take it back down. But you can adjust it going forward. You don't have to live in that perpetual cycle of creating even more regret. By the way, that's what happens when we get stuck on something or we ruminate on it over and over, we get stuck in the loop of regret. And that's just more time wasted in life, regretting even more. So practice releasing by giving forgiveness and self-forgiveness. Understanding that. This is an essential step in dealing with regret and you have to forgive yourself. You did the best you could with what you had. Believe that. Believe in yourself. Or if for some reason you know that you didn't do your best, forgive yourself. And from here on out, covenant and promise. I'm going to do my best. I'm not going to be lazy. I'm not going to take shortcuts. I'm going to remember this experience. I'm going to remember this experience. And I'm going to do the very best that I can. This is how I'm able to forgive other people as well as thinking they did the best they could with what they had. They were victims too. They couldn't make a different decision. They did what they knew to do. So just practice that self-forgiveness.

While regret. may induce pain. In fact, it definitely will bring pain to you. It can also be a chance for growth. When you start to feel that sense of regret, understand that you can grow through this. Not that I can't do it differently in the past, but I can do it differently in the future. I can become richer, wiser, more of an in-depth person, and more reflective because now I have a lesson and experience that I can apply to future decisions. So adjust your perspective on regret, review it, and view it as a valuable learning experience. So absolutely, living without regret is an admirable goal.

So I want to give you a few points as we journey through midlife. Now, we've lived enough life to know that we all have some regrets. We know enough and we're wise enough to know that if we keep living with those regrets, we're going to get stuck and we're going to stall out and grief and sorrow and all those feelings will overtake us. I can't do that. We're not minimizing anything, but we're saying, Fresh start, a new beginning. Where do I go from here?

There is a book written by Bronnie Ware that talks about The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I'm not gonna quote her completely, but I am gonna say that the number one regret of dying as she was taking care of people who were in the last moments of life, their regret was that they didn't live more true to themself. They didn't live authentically. They didn't express how they really felt or what they loved or what they valued.

So if we're going to live a life that when we get to the end of it, we have very few regrets. Then the first thing is that you have to live true to yourself, right? You have to embrace your authenticity, live authentically, and live true to yourself, your values, and your desires. Now, this isn't a call to live selfishly, but it is a call to live authentically. Let your voice be heard. What do you want to do? What do you desire? How do you want to spend your time? Because regrets often come from not honoring our authentic selves, not honoring our voice or that little whisper or that knock on the door that says, this isn't what you want to be doing. But when we succumb to societal pressure or relational pressures, and we start to lose our identity, and our voice, then we are forfeiting our authenticity. We're forfeiting our values. We're not aligned to what we truly desire, our aspirations, and that's where the likelihood of regret begins to grow. So live authentically to yourself.

Number two, prioritize your relationships. Don't overwork. Don't fill your life with so many obligations that you miss time to foster meaningful connections with those that you love. Another regret of the dying is that I didn't have time for the people that I love. So make sure that you prioritize that relationship. Make time for it. Time is the best you can to invest in the relationships that are really important to you. Send that text, drop that email, have that quick coffee, and nurture the relationships that are important to you. That will lead you to a life of fulfillment that will lead you to a life with less guilt if not no guilt. I don't want to have guilt over how much time I didn't spend with somebody who's supposedly supposed to be important to me. I have a life right now. I'm going to call my mom today. I'm going to reach out to my sister. I'm going to spend time with my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren. When you prioritize your relationships, you're less likely to regret neglecting important connections with those that matter to you.

Then I want to tell you to embrace a growth mindset. Do not stop learning. Do not stop growing. Do not stop reading and expanding and increasing because you don't want to regret what you didn't do. I always wanted to learn how to play the guitar, but you never picked one up. I guess you didn't really always want to do that. What do you want to do?

Before it's too late, keep growing, keep stretching, keep reaching, and keep dreaming. This is what will help you live a meaningful and fulfilled life. At the same time, along with this growth mindset, is that you'll have to battle, you'll encounter, wage war, and win with self-criticism and that voice that says, you're not something enough, you've made mistakes, who do you think you are?

Setbacks, failures, all of the things that we could just get in the corner and lick our wounds and say, I don't want to engage life at that level, it's too risky, it's too scary. Don't let that be you. A fulfilling life is yours to be had. Don't live with regret. Take that step of faith and keep living with that growth mindset. You want to do that.

And that just kind of leads into the next one is where you want to live in the present moment as well. You want to be mindful about each moment that you're in. Life is moving fast. Have you discovered that? It just keeps going, right? It just keeps going. But be present. Smell the smells and feel the feels and take snapshots frame by frame in your mind and your brain as life unfolds. Experience it. Touch it. Taste it. Don't let me work. I'm a big one for I love my goals. I love reaching my goals. I love moving forward, but it can't detract from what's happening right here, right now.

So I'm not on my phone. I'm not sending emails. I'm not in the present moment, living it behind the camera, just taking video. I don't want to live that way. I want to be present. I want to cultivate gratitude and have a sense of thankfulness and appreciation for the present. Don't want to minimize this moment because I'm daydreaming about the next moment. Live fully in the present. Then when life goes on and you look back, you won't say, I regret that I didn't really enjoy that. We went on that vacation, but I had so much work to do. I wish I hadn't done that, or I wish that I hadn't. While I was at the graduation or the dance, I wish I hadn't been just taking so many pictures. I really kind of missed the whole thing. Live present.

And then we've already kind of mentioned it, but take those calculated risks. Regret often stems from missed opportunities, playing it safe because you are afraid to fail or you're embarrassed about what somebody might think of you. But if you step out of your comfort zone and pursue your dream, you seize those opportunities, cultivate your courage, or get as much of it as you can to take that next baby step. Even if things don't go as planned, You took a step. You took a leap and you can feel proud of yourself for doing that. Then you won't have the regret of, I regret what I didn't do. You might have the regret that maybe it didn't turn out the way I planned, but at least I wasn't a fraidy cat. I wasn't a sissy. I lived life, okay?

And so, the last thing that I want to share with you is to live a life without regret and do the things that bring you joy. Do more of the things that bring you joy and less of the things that don't. Now, you've got to mitigate this because you can't just do things that are so fun that you're not, you know, working hard towards health and cultivating exercise and moving your body and eating correctly and doing the hard work.

As we all know, we can have our hard now or our hard later. Do the things, the hard things that bring you a life of ease later. Don't regret it. I wish I had done the hard things then, because now it's really hard. So, pay your taxes, put money away in savings, keep moving your body, eat right, stay connected to family, and all the things that the older you will say thank you for doing that because now I'm living a really fulfilled life because you did hard things then. So you don't want to regret that. But do fill your life with things that, those ‘silah moments,’ that pause, that break of refreshment.

What do you enjoy doing? Do you love being by the water? Go to the water more often. Do you love just sitting with a book by the fire? Do it more often. Do the things that bring you joy a little more often and the balance of your life will be heavy on pleasant, enjoyable, fulfilling, and not so heavy on difficult, painful, problematic, obligatory, and things like that.

So that's what I have for you today. I hope this has helped you live a life where you'll say. Listen, if you're living a life of regret because you're dwelling on the past, you're perseverating over something that you can't change, whether it's something you did or whether it's something that happened, I'm going to encourage you today to release that by simply just saying, I'm no longer going to hold it. I'm not going to grip it. I'm not going to let it hold me and grip my mind. I'm going to release this. I'm going to release it to God. I'm going to say, Lord, you're able to keep that, which I commit to you. So here it is. Here's the pain. Here's the sorrow. Here's the guilt that I feel. Here's the unforgiveness that I have towards myself or towards someone else. I need to let that go today. I'm going to release that today. I want to be set free from this regret. Just say those words and then reframe and say I choose today to live today going forward, refreshed, refueled, refocused, refined, filled with courage for a new beginning and a fresh start. Okay. My offer for you today is to hop on over to Amazon.com and get a copy of my book, The Making of a BraveHearted Woman: Courage, Confidence, and Vision in Midlife. You don't want to miss this. If you've not downloaded this on Kindle or bought a hard copy yet, I encourage you to do so. This book will change you. I promise you. The way you look at life, the way you go through life, and the way you show up in life 10 years from now.

The Making of a BraveHearted Woman: Courage, Confidence, and Vision in Midlife is a number one best-selling book. I want to make sure you have your copy. By the way, if you've already bought the book, read the book, would you like it? Would you give me a review on Amazon? That would be so helpful. for me. I would appreciate it so much. That will be very helpful. All right, everybody, Dawn Damon, your Braveheart mentor, leaving you like I always do with one more thing. It's time for you to find your brave and live your dreams. And how about this one? Are you ready to rise to your design? Let's do it!