| |
| No Regrets, or
What Do You Mean Woulda/Shoulda/Coulda?
|
|
One of the things that we see holding people back is their decision to look
back at decisions that they have made and bring three poisonous, nasty,
self-defeating, and mean words into their thoughts “Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda”.
We all have 20/20 hindsight; we can always tell anyone what they should have
done.
Now, there is nothing wrong with “lessons learned”. If you touch a hot
stove, it hurts and you need to remember not to touch hot stoves again. But
you don’t need to tell yourself every day for the rest of your life that you
have touching hot stoves is terrible, and remind yourself that it caused you
pain. You don’t need to say over and over again “if only I hadn’t touched
that hot stove, I would not have burned my hand and had pain. I shoulda
been more careful."
Once something is done, it is done. It is over. If you have made
a mistake, there is no point in going back over it again and again.
Reliving mistakes leads to many problems:
 |
Looking back to
your errors is ruinous to your self-esteem. You keep telling yourself
over and over again that you made a stupid decision. This is exactly the
opposite of positive self-talk. |
|
Reflecting on
your errors over and over makes you cowardly about taking chances – you
soon become afraid of your own judgment. The negative cases take the
forefront of your mind, like a billboard in front of you. |
|
Telling everyone about your “shoulda/woulda/coulda”
decisions reduces their confidence in you as well. Although we should not
deny our mistakes, there is no sense in bragging about them. In addition,
these stories are generally a dreadful bore to those who are listening. |
Finally, ask yourself, how did reliving your errors ever lead to achieving
your goal or objective?
The answer is that it didn't |
| Questions About
Avoiding Regrets? |
| Please feel free to
contact us for further information.
|
|
