Tip 21: Moi, Je Ne Regrette Rien

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do,
begin it.
Action has magic, grace and power in it.
Goethe

Imagine it’s your 80th birthday. You’re waking up and feeling excited about the day to come. Where are you? What can you hear? What can you see? It’s a special occasion and all your family and friends will be arriving to celebrate the day with you. As you lie in bed you think back over your life and everything you’ve done up to now… all your experiences … your work … your relationships … your hobbies … the people you’ve known. Looking back from this viewpoint, on this day, is there anything you regret NOT having done?

Sometimes when I give talks I’ll invite the audience to close their eyes and imagine this scenario. Ideally, of course, we’ll reach the age of 80, happy in the knowledge that we’ve done all the things — large and small — that we really wanted to do. But sadly, this isn’t always the case.

Sheila attended one of my talks several years ago and her story beautifully illustrates how this exercise can impact your life. Having done the visualisation she decided to make one of her life-long dreams a reality. She explains: ‘One of the things you said when I first met you really struck home with me. It was when we closed our eyes at age 80 and thought back on all the experiences we had had, and all the things we wished we had done.

So much so that I have made a rather crazy decision, based on an idea that I have harboured deep in my soul for many years. In March I will be setting off to Tibet and will trek to base camp at Everest… just seeing it written down seems to make it even more real! So after March I can close my eyes and always see Everest. Wow that really excites me.’

What an inspiration. And a real life example of someone who had the guts to really push the boundaries to achieve something she felt passionately about. Sheila did achieve her dream to get to Everest Base Camp and has since been back to Annapurna Base Camp, which she says was even more memorable than Everest. She writes that her original crazy decision to go to Everest … has contributed to a huge shift in everything I do.

What are your dreams? Is there something you’ve secretly longed to do? Might you draw inspiration from Sheila’s story and start making plans to make it real?

To regret fully is to appreciate how high the stakes are
in even the average human life;
fully experienced,
it turns our eyes attentive and alert,
to a future possibly lived better than our past.
David Whyte

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their
environment and especially on their children than the
unlived life of the parent.
C.G. Jung