How to Avoid Regret
What will you most regret your life when your time is up? Failure to meet debt and obligations? Or refusing to follow your dream? A new Cornell University study shows that our biggest regrets have nothing to do with our responsibilities in life.
According to psychologist Tom Gilovich , lead author of The Perfect Road Not Traveled, published in Emotion magazine , our most troubling regrets have to do with not being able to live up to our ideal selves. Basically, we are not so worried about the mistakes we made or what we should have done, as we are about the fact that we will never be who we really wanted to be. Gilovich explains :
“When we evaluate our life, we think about whether we are moving towards our ideal self, becoming the person we would like to be. These are regrets that will stay with you because this is what you look at through the windshield of life. “Due” regrets are potholes in the road. Those were problems, but now they are over. “
All this is based on the theory of the discrepancy between themselves three “I” : the actual “I”, the ideal “I” and “I should”. The real “I” is what a person considers himself to be now, based on his current qualities and abilities. The ideal self consists of the qualities and abilities that they would like to have one day – in fact, their goals, hopes and aspirations. The proper “me” is who some thought they should be in accordance with their obligations and responsibilities. In terms of regret, the failure of the proper self is more about “I could have done it better,” and the failure of the ideal self is more “I never became the person I wanted to be.”
In the long run , Gilovich’s previous research showed that people regret their inaction more than their actions in the long run. At the moment, the mistake causes you a lot of regret, but you deal with it quickly, as it dissolves into the typical “live and learn” mentality. After all, no one is perfect, right? Gilovich explains that people are less worried about failing to do what they should, because it’s easier to take action to fix such problems. Most mistakes can be corrected or at least apologized for.
But you cannot fix what was never originally done. You see, the inaction, the complete absence of trying, is what will really haunt you. Maybe you have never given the opportunity to make music, despite your love for it. You may have hid every idea of the story you ever wrote down because you were afraid of what people would think if you really tried. Or maybe you never had the courage to tell this special person you care about, so he lived his life without you. Gilovich says many people wait for inspiration before trying to reach their personal goals, but you don’t need to. The need for inspiration is just an excuse, and a lazy one. If you want to avoid such unsettling regrets, the obvious way out is: do it while you can.
This does not mean that you have to give up your duties and responsibilities for the sake of your dreams. It’s just a reminder that what you want to do in life isn’t going anywhere . Of course, we age and our priorities and responsibilities change, but we still have what we want to be when we grow up. We all have an ideal version of ourselves in our imaginations, and although we can never achieve everything that we imagine, we cannot even begin to approach our ideal self without doing something.
So what does your ideal self look like? It may be a little fuzzy and may change over time, but it is there – take a closer look. Once you have a general idea, make a concerted effort to try, fail, explore what you like, find out what you don’t like, and gradually transform that vision of your ideal self into a realistic, step-by-step approach. stepped target. Remember that your ideal self should be who you aspire to be, not a looming, maybe you need to ghost haunting you on your deathbed.