Submitted by TreatThompson t3_1062i89 in GetMotivated
For the past 3 years, I've been forcing myself to choose failure over regret.
It comes from the idea of reflecting on your life and choosing what you'd rather have:
- Memories of you chasing your dreams and falling short sometimes but nailing it others
- Thoughts of how your life could’ve turned out if you didn't play it safe
The second one is scary to me.
Choosing failure over regret is a mindset of not wanting to leave anything on the table in life. It comes down to squeezing everything out of your time on Earth.
Two things thrusted this mindest on me:
- An article titled “The Most Powerful Lessons People Learn Too Late in Life”:
The article had a list of things you're NOT going to care about when you reflect on your life.
These stuck out to me:
- How safe and practical you were: You're not going to look back and be grateful that you didn’t try starting a business or travelling the world. You won’t be proud that you simply played it safe and saved up a good retirement after working for 40 years.
- How much embarrassment you saved: You're not going to reflect on your entire life and be glad you never risked being laughed at for having an idea that's outside the box. You won't value the comfort of NOT taking a shot over the feeling of your ideas coming to life.
2. A grid of a 90-year human life in weeks by Tim Urban:
This image is of a typical American life. Each box is a week, each row is a year, and in total, it shows a 90-year life (which is a pretty lucky age to reach). I'll comment a link of the picture!
The picture took life (which can seem endless at times) and made it VERY finite for me.
Final Thoughts:
Regrets sting more than failure because, in failure, you get to see how the idea played out. With regret, you're left wondering for an eternity.
This mindset change stopped me from saying "one day" all the time. It made me not care about, or be afraid of, judgement. I stopped letting time slip away without doing what I wanted.
Because if I let those things happen, I might regret it one day. I might wonder what could have been.
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I share ideas from great thinkers so we can stand on the shoulders of giants, instead of figuring life out alone
TreatThompson OP t1_j3e835u wrote
This is the picture I referred to!
It gives me a healthy amount of pressure everytime I look at it