Leading up to Thanksgiving, each day I will blog about what I’m doing to be more grateful. I invite you to join me, and to share your thoughts, observations, suggestions and ideas.
Day 10: Instead of regretting the past, being grateful for the present
This week I’m blogging about the reasons I’m not as grateful as I know I should be — I kicked off the series of gratitude stoppers here.
Besides spending energy wanting what I don’t have, and being frustrated by life’s annoyances, another thing that distracts me from gratitude is regret.
With the benefit of hindsight, my life is peppered with events I wish I could do over. Mostly they’re times when I haven’t treated people as well as they deserved.
It’s easy for me to invest a lot of time turning those events over and over in my mind and beating myself up for them. I would like to reclaim some of that time and energy to redirect it into gratitude.
Does that mean giving myself a pass for the mistakes I’ve made? Absolutely not.
Instead, I’m looking for ways to learn from those experiences:
- think about why I made the choices I did
- think about what I’d do differently if I had the chance
- apologize to those I’ve hurt
And yes, I’d even like to be grateful for those regretable memories. Because as long as I’m paying attention, maybe I learned something that will help me become more of the person I’d like to be.
Sort of like touching a hot stove helps you learn that it’s a bad idea to touch a hot stove.
This video looks a bit like an infomercial because of the corny graphics but I like the message of learning to forgive yourself.
Can you give thanks for mistakes you’ve made in the past and lessons you learned as a result?
November 24, 2011 at 5:45 am
[...] reflect on your regrets and give thanks for the lessons your mistakes have taught you [...]
November 1, 2010 at 8:47 am
[...] reflect on your regrets and give thanks for the lessons your mistakes have taught you [...]
October 31, 2010 at 11:22 am
[...] reflect on your regrets and give thanks for the lessons your mistakes have taught you [...]
November 6, 2009 at 12:16 am
[...] Day 10: Regrets, I’ve had a few [...]
November 5, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sometimes I think when we regret a choice, it doesn’t necessarily mean we made the wrong choice but that it was a difficult choice. Maybe what we really regret is not having twelve simultaneous lives to try out each thing.
November 5, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Regret and its cousin, guilt, tend to interfere in life a lot. Learning from those mistakes is so much more valuable than the approach many people take: justifying them.
November 4, 2009 at 3:43 pm
ps. Thanks for not commenting on the fact that “doofusness” is unlikely to be found in the AP Stylebook.
November 4, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Colleen!
So glad our wavelengths crossed today on the topic of regret. Thanks for commenting over on my blog! http://theflamingoroom.blogspot.com/2009/11/je-ne-regrette-rien.html
Corny graphics aside, self-forgiveness frees up a whole lot of energy for productive output in the world. And Mr. Tebeau is right re: mistakes as building blocks.
Keep on climbing!
Catherine
November 4, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I have. Every ‘mistake’ I’ve made has brought me to where I am now, and I have to say, that’s okay with me. I’m a lucky devil! (as David Cross once said)