I just finished reading the book called “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and it was fantastic. By Finished I mean I am on the last 5 pages and I will say this book has really challenged me in a lot of ways. One of the things it talked about towards the end was the idea and concept of living life with no regrets. To be honest I can’t truly say that I have lived a life with no regrets or that the pace of life I am living now and my mindset will truly allow me to live a life of no regrets. 

There are things I want to do that I just have not done. Let me put it a different way, there are dreams I have had that I have written off as impossible simply because I don’t think I can achieve them and yet I know years from now I will look back at them and wonder “But what if I did.” 

Over the last few months, I have been learning more about myself and questioning the why behind my actions or more so my inactions. While I am still going through this process I am finding that a lot of my inactions are rooted in my fear of failure. The haunting question of if I can do it is more framed in my mind as “what if I fail.” I have not simply allowed myself to consider the possibility that success has different forms and that simply trying is one step in the right direction. 

I asked myself the question when I look back on my life at things that I regret will I regret more of the failures I had or the things I never tried at all for the fear of failure or the fear of the unknown? Some part of me will never fully know because I am not my future self so I can truly only see and speak from the now. However, another part of me feels I can answer that question based on my perspective of looking back on what I have lived so far. 

As I do this retrospective thinking, I am inclined to think the things I would regret are things I never did because of fear. Currently, when I think back on past failures I realize I have always been the person who was thankful for the failures as much as they hurt I have always found a way to learn vital lessons from them that have made me better. So in reality my failures have always given me a perspective, not regret.