If You Could Redo the Last 5 Years of Your Life, Would You?

There’s no undoing the past, the only way through is forward

Do you sometimes wish you could lay your hands on life’s remote control? Or maybe you’d rather have an eraser instead?

Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to rewind parts of their life they wish they could do over? or maybe even better, just erase parts of it you wish never happened?

We live in a world full of choices to be made, with no pause or rewind features, and we’re bound at some point to regret some of those choices.

We all know on an intellectual level that there’s no undoing the past, there’s no going back in time to unsay or do or redo. Moments of our lives go with every tick of the clock — moments that we can’t and won’t get back.

But we still hold on to life's woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Regret is an emotion that occurs when a person believes that making a different choice, may have resulted in a better outcome.

While regret could be beneficial in some regards, sometimes or maybe often times it impacts our lives in less desirable ways.

Regrets show up in our lives differently and to varying degrees. The circumstances or actions that caused those regrets have varying levels of consequences. Some seem more final like death, and some are less challenging to correct.

Wishing you’d studied a different program in college may have an easier solution for instance than wishing you’d spent more time with your kids when they were younger.

I have my fair share of regrets, choices I wish I hadn’t made, and the ones I wish I did. One of the greatest sources of regret in my life is my father’s death — I wish I’d called more, I wish I had more money so maybe I could have gotten him better care towards the end, I wish…

No matter how much it hurts or how much I want to be able to step back into the past, I can’t and neither can you.

So what’s the way forward, are you and I condemned to live this way forever?

Good news — NO.

How can you move forward?

1️⃣ Recognize the difference between when regret is beneficial and when it’s affecting you negatively. 2️⃣ Realize the dangers of holding on to regret. 3️⃣ Understand why you may be holding on to regrets even though it’s hurting you. 4️⃣ Learn how to deal with it, use it to your advantage and move forward in spite of or because of it.

Sometimes regret could be beneficial and other times not. Here’s how to know the difference:

When the regrets you have motivate you to take positive actions that move you towards evolving and becoming a better human, that’s a good sign. On the other hand, when regret takes over your thoughts and causes you anxiety and inaction then it’s not beneficial.

The quality of your life depends largely on how well you’re able to take and use the information and feedback from life to make your journey better.

Regret is one of the many sources of valuable feedback we get from life. You can either use that information as a guide to motivate and inspire you to make wiser decisions, or you could use it as a weapon to tear yourself down.

In a nutshell, holding on to regret isn’t beneficial, but using it as feedback to make changes and become better is.

It’s dangerous to hold on to regret

There’s no escaping regret — wondering about the path not taken is part of what it means to be human, but what you do with it is what makes the difference.

If you don’t get anything else from this article, I want you to hold on to this

What makes regret dangerous is when you hold on to it.

What you let go of has no power to control you. Regret is dangerous when you allow the mistakes of the past to overshadow your present and cloud your vision of the future.

No matter the form or the degree to which regret shows up in your life, one thing you don’t want is to let it take over your thoughts and life.

** Holding on to regret focuses on the past that you have no control over.

In other words, it’s pointless. It’s a waste of your valuable resources of time, energy and most important your life.

You are alive and you still have more living to do, but you can’t get to it fully and focus on it if you are living your life looking in the rearview mirror.

Don’t get sucked into the vortex of your past.

** It’s unnecessary emotional turmoil and torture which adversely affects your health and relationships

Holding on to regret and replaying endlessly in your mind all the ways things may have turned out is unnecessary because it serves no useful purpose other than taking a toll on both your body and mind.

When your relationship with regret is unhealthy, you also experience its cousins — guilt, shame and anxiety making a deadly combo that robs you of peace, causing you enormous stress that ultimately leads to poorer health.

Not only does it affect your body, but it also affects your mind and mood as well, which in turn spills out unto those around you.

Having an unhealthy relationship with regret does nothing but pollute other areas of your life, making it all the more challenging to live a wholesome life.

** It gives way to self-blame and self-judgement

When you repeatedly think about the path not taken and how your life could have had a different outcome, eventually you’ll begin to feel bad about yourself, robbing yourself of confidence for your future.

When you stay stuck in this mode, you doubt yourself to make sound decisions and ultimately end up stuck in a self-created self-defeating cycle, unable to live differently and change your life for the better.

** Lowered emotional energy to invest in moving your life forward

It takes incredible effort and energy to create and live an inspiring life. When you waste your efforts and energy living in the past, you’re left with little to no energy to invest in your future.

It also somewhat ensures that you would have more to regret in the future because holding on to regret means that you haven’t learned the lesson and if you haven’t learned the lesson, you are most likely going to repeat it and keep yourself in the endless cycle of defeat.

Holding on also means that you’ll miss out on the joys of your present and the opportunities and possibilities for the future.

Learn from your mistakes and move forward.

Why hold on to regrets?

Why do we hold on to the past and torture ourselves with regret, knowing that no matter how much energy and time we spend thinking and focusing on what we wish wasn’t or on what could have been, we can’t change what was and what wasn’t?

I think like most things, at the root of regret is deep-seated self-judgement and fear.

We’ve believed the lie that we’re incapable of getting better and for most of our lives, we’ve been met with punishment when we do not shape up, so a lot of us never learned to give ourselves grace and have self-compassion.

We do what we know best, and ‘punish’ ourselves because anything else feels like we’re copping out and taking the easy way out.

For the most part, it also keeps us ‘busy’ and makes us feel in a counterproductive way that we’re doing what’s needed.

In a counterintuitive way, it’s easier to ‘punish’ ourselves for mistakes of the past than to launch out in faith to create a better future, because what if we make more mistakes and have more missteps?

But remember, that the regrets that impact us the most are not actions we took that turned out to be mistakes, but the things that we didn’t do.

We regret more the things we didn’t do.

So while regret keeps you ‘busy’, it also takes away your ability to focus on creating a future where you do not have to look back on today in regret.

No matter how challenging it is, the only option is to move forward.

Holding on to the regrets of missed opportunities means that you’re missing the opportunity presented to you right now to evolve and make something beautiful out of the pieces left of your life.

How to move forward and use regret to your advantage

“Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” ~Marsha Petrie Sue

** Acceptance

At some point, you have to make peace with the life you have now.

Acknowledge the disappointments and regrets that you feel but decide to work through those feelings and come out stronger on the other side.

One thing you don’t want to do is repress your feelings and thoughts because then you’re not in control and you’re not learning or growing from the experience.

We’re better off digging into our oldest woes and becoming acquainted with their nature, and the nature of our response to them. ~ Shai Davidai

Acknowledge and accept that what you feel is an essential part of life. Accept what is and determine what’s within your control and what’s not.

Acceptance doesn’t mean holding on, it means choosing to make peace with the things you have no control over and moving forward with expectations of what can be.

Regrets are a part of life but decide not to hold on.

Holding on is an action and a choice you get to make.

At any point, you can choose to open up your mind, release regret and let it go.

This is not just mindlessly saying ‘Let it go’ or ‘Have no regrets’, because that’s like wishing you could just point a magic wand at your heart and mind and cast a spell on it to conform, but life doesn’t work that way, you have to intentionally deal with it.

No matter how much it hurts, I’ll never get a do-over with my dad, I can’t undo or redo any of it.

Letting go doesn’t mean that you will permanently get rid of the feelings, but it means that you are going to turn them into opportunities for growth — to change and evolve.

It’s not a one-time event, it’s a process, one that’s likely going to be complex and challenging depending on how emotionally attached you are to the event.

But the choice to embark on that journey can be made at any moment.

There’s no going back, there’s no taking it back. Accept that and know peace. Cry if you have to, mourn the disappointment you feel, mourn the time you feel you’ve lost, then when you’re done, get up, wash your face and choose to LIVE the rest of your life.

** Forgive yourself

This is challenging for a lot of people because it feels like a cop-out. It’s easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves because we may understand how it’s possible for someone outside of us to let us down, but when we let ourselves down, it’s harder to grasp.

You have to remember that this human experience is one messy and complex journey.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we were all born perfect, but none of us are and because we’re not perfect, we’re going to let ourselves and each other down and sometimes in epic life-altering ways.

The question to ask yourself then is What’s the alternative?

If you don’t let go of the guilt, the shame, the self-judgement and beating up on yourself, how does that make your life better?

Why would you condemn yourself to live such a life?

The whole point of your existence is to continuously discover and uncover the real treasure that is you.

Choose to let go of the anger, judgement, or disappointment you feel toward yourself.

You have the power to create and move forward toward the future you want, but you can’t move forward if you continue to carry the burden of unforgiveness toward yourself and others.

Erwin McManus said: There is a difference between stepping into tomorrow and stepping into your future.

If you’re alive, tomorrow will come but that doesn’t mean you are stepping into your future. A lot of people go into a thousand tomorrows while still living in the past.

Don’t you think you deserve better?

Do yourself a favour and let the past go, learn from it but let it go. Forgive yourself and continue to live the rest of your life as a wiser, more resilient, more compassionate you.

** Change your perception / reframe

Okay, fine Deola, I accept, and I forgive myself, what now?

While we have no rewind or erase capabilities we have something else we can use in our favour and that is our power of perception, we have the ability to reframe our life experiences in ways that empower us and allow us to move forward.

You have the ability to choose the meaning you attach to any event in your life and the meaning you attach affects your life because it affects everything from your mood to your health, to your actions and how much of life you get to experience and enjoy.

What’s done is done — why let it affect the present and the future in a negative way?

Be determined to see all the ways life is working for you and use it to your advantage and empowerment.

“We’re not experiencing life at all — we’re experiencing our mind.” ~ Tony Robbins

This is not about simply denying reality or not acknowledging the feelings of regret, it’s about choosing to see the ways in which the mistakes of your past have shaped your present and the power you hold to use them to shape your future.

According to Daniel Pink, you have to learn to optimize regret.

The regrets you feel should not go to waste, and the mistakes you make have hidden gems of wisdom but you can’t be open to seeing those gems if you are blinded by the emotions.

The fact that you feel regret is proof that you’re capable of growth. I mean what if you made a mistake and don’t even realize it? Regrets mean that you now have deeper insight and know better ways to handle things.

Let’s take one of the deeply emotional regrets we face, the regrets of a life we could have lived, opportunities lost etc while you can’t get back the time, you have to always remember that you still have more life ahead of you and it’s never too late to start living.

So you can’t go back to do some of the things you wished you did when you were younger, use that feeling of regret as feedback that there is something you could and should be doing right now, and get to it so that you don’t repeat the same mistake giving your older self the experience of the same recycled regret.

** Take action

Nothing changes without action.

You can’t escape making mistakes and having regrets from time to time, but you can avoid making the same mistakes.

Part of evolving is that you don’t live life recycling the same mistakes and regrets over and over. It’s about using regret as a learning opportunity that helps you gain deeper insight and wisdom.

One sure way to move forward in spite of the missteps of the past is by becoming better and taking actions that are in line with the new improved you.

Let your experiences and mistakes propel you to make wiser decisions and toward a better future.

Make a plan to use all your newly gained insight and wisdom to live so that in five years you don’t wish to undo the life you’re living now

In a nutshell

You weren’t born perfect, so you’re going to make mistakes. However, being human also means that you have the power of perception to use any of your life experiences as a guide to empowering yourself going forward.

It’s impossible to change the past, so accept it for what it is and focus your efforts and energy on actively creating a future that inspires you, leaving no room for brooding on what could have or should have been.

In the words of Lucy Hone “Choose life, not death. Don’t lose what you have to what you have lost”

Regret could easily become a burden that can cause you to lose more than what you are regretting right now.

There’s more of your life left to be lived, there’s more living left to do, so choose life, choose to let your journey toward your future inspire you. Don’t waste any more moments shackled to the woulda, coulda, shoulda of life. It’s pointless.

Until the next perfect time ~ Deola

by Donnette Anglin 👇🏾

by Lucia Landini 👇🏾

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