Can you live without regrets? Visual Aid: How to Live a Life Without Regret Leading a Sedentary Life

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 dying wishes. Research shows that people tend to regret more of what did not do than what they did. With this in mind, you should make a list of what you want to do before you die. It could be a “small” adventure, like skydiving, or something big and big, like kids or career advancement.

Define your core values. It is not 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 might 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 test to determine your career, personality traits, and inclinations. The test will help you discover your strengths and match 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. It often happens, for example, that people regret not following 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. Also, it is better to give up on the goal sometimes than to drain yourself.
Develop your ways of expressing yourself. Self-expression and creativity are an integral part of a life without regrets. These aspects can manifest themselves in the most different ways- from more conventional (music or painting) to 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 attentive to 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 on your own.
- 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 that it is 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 be less worried about what 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 higher educational establishments which you could go to after high school, narrow down your choices to a few, 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, disintegrate 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 slightly larger new 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 such as yoga or a walk in which you pay close attention to your steps.

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 consequences are not fraught with right choice 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 don't refuse. As a result, these people really achieve success, 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 difficult for people 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 this.

Gail Saltz

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

Inattention 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, modern conditions overload and constant pressure from various stress factors, many people suffer from the consequences of not paying attention to this pressure.

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 avoid regret. However, now you know what most people regret, and you can try not to repeat their mistakes and place them correctly life priorities... 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. Therefore, 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.

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 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, 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 - the best choice available in this moment time options, - 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 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 the prospects 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 we look around, trying to understand where the call came from. Then, waking up in the middle of our world, painfully recollecting and cherishing every day, we peer into life, trying with all our being to see if 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 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 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 Other Men Talk About, the watchman recalls how in childhood he wanted to become an astronaut ... “If our desire continues to live inside our regrets, we can bring it into the light of consciousness and look for a way to realize it in the current circumstances,” Elena Ulitova is convinced. - Flying into space in 60 years, 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 "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 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?”, “How would my 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.

If you once came to the conclusion that life is somehow going wrong: you have a lot of problems, perhaps poor health ...

If you once came to the conclusion that life is going somehow wrong: you have a lot of problems, perhaps poor health, and maybe you do not live your life, then it is time to "put things in order and prioritize."

I'll tell you what steps to take. There are several excellent ways and methods for this. One of important points in this process - this is a natural visualization, i.e. on paper and honestly.

Life balance wheel

So, let's draw the wheel of life balance. We divide the wheel into spheres that are somehow present in your life: family, work, health, appearance, self-realization - everything that comes into your head, and everything that is today. The result should be a kind of "pie" of the spheres of life.

Each "piece" of the pie must be rated on a 10-point scale, that is, how satisfied you are in each area of your life. Look at this wheel and the degree of satisfaction, it is already very visual in itself.

Further, after your assessment on a ten-point scale, see which of the areas of life, if it had about 10 points, would be able to promote all your other areas to the maximum, i.e. which one would become the leading one?

Eisenhower Matrix

Now let's put aside our life balance wheel for now and use the Eisenhower matrix. Usually it is used for business, but it is also suitable for our purposes.

There are 4 squares in it:

important-urgent,
no matter urgent,
important, not urgent,
not urgently, not important.

For example, work, in which square would you place it: important-urgent, unimportant-urgent, and where would the family go? That is, the task here is to distribute your spheres according to the corresponding squares of urgency and importance.

Next, look at the sphere that is the mostpromoting, in which square is she now? Is it in the importance square? If at the first stage all areas were noted honestly, as it really is in life, then at this stage it should also be in the area of importance, if not, then there is a reason to speculate why this happened?

If, for example, at the first stage “work” became a promoting area, and at the second, it did not fall into the “important-urgent” or “important-non-urgent” square. Answer yourself to the question: is it important? And promoting?

The task is to choose the sphere that, according to your inner feelings, will fall into the promoting sphere and the important square in both stages.

By this principle, usually in business business people can correctly allocate their time and tasks.

Ideally, you need to live in the "important-not urgent" square, as this makes it possible to live at a comfortable pace and do important things.

If, for example, your “income” falls into the “important-non-urgent” square, you can easily take care of your family, or a hobby, or even look away own business, because stable income it allows you to move calmly in that direction.

But the "important-urgent" square makes you live in a constant "fire" and solve important problems at once, in a hurry. Here is the same “income”, if you fall into the “urgent-important” square, you do not have the opportunity for free decisions, you cannot choose a business to your liking, you need to choose a job that brings income, sometimes without pleasure.

You have already identified where your main sphere is, now you need to think about how to move it to the "important-not urgent" square. This will help you get the most out of your stay in this area, get full enjoyment, and take your time.

If your family is in the "important-urgent" square. What problem needs to be solved in the family so that it can move into the “important-not-urgent” comfort square?

If "health" is in the urgent square, what needs to be done in the near future and continue to do in the future so that it is also in the comfort square?

Dilts' pyramid of logical levels

It is also important to think about what is the very first step you can take so that your significant (promoting) area reaches 10 points, that is, to the maximum.

How can your environment and abilities help you with this?

Ask yourself, what actions should you take right tomorrow to move in this direction?

If you do these actions, who will you feel yourself to be? How will you feel?

One last thing if you take this step:

What will then become possible in your life? What will change?

And when you understand what will change in your life, see what your attitude will be, who can you then become?

What abilities will you develop and how will your environment change?

When there is a feeling of dissatisfaction, there is no energy and motivation for action, very often this means that we are in the wrong place.

As practice has shown, not everyone understands this at once. Therefore, you should immediately use the visual tools described above in order to see the whole picture as it really is, and not sit in conjectures and suspicions.

The time of revaluation of values is something that sooner or later comes to everyone. published

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 corrected.

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 ahead is colored in positive tones ("I still have time! 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.

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" 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 about 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 about it. Relationships are work. You don't need to let them go by themselves 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 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 an 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 individual.

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 deed.

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:

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!