“I quit! I’m done!”
Quitting something can offer temporary relief but lead to regret. I’ve discovered 7 ways to avoid regret in life (more on that below).
Regret can creep up on you. In the line at the grocery store when it jumps randomly pops into your mind. When you see someone with the same capabilities as you doing well at the very thing you quit. And especially when you experience that awkward moment when you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while and they ask you if you’re still “working on that thing”; and you have to kill the moment by telling them you’ve quit that path. There may be good reasons why you quit. It may not have been feasible. The timing of it may have been off. Competing responsibilities may have thwarted the mission. Whatever the case, it’s run aground and regret will set in at some point and like an oblivious house guest, won’t leave!
In the first chapter of my book Party Crasher, I talk about the regrets I experienced in my soccer journey. Growing up in Canada with Scottish heritage, soccer was ingrained in my blood from the moment I could kick a ball. With a soccer ball in my crib and my parents’ high expectations, I embarked on a journey that would test my resilience, determination, and ultimately, my belief in myself.
From a young age, I was pushed to excel in soccer by my father. Soccer became not just a game but a means to earn validation and acceptance from my father. However, as I grew older, soccer became more than just a sport. It became a reflection of my relationship with my father.
I cut off my nose to spite my face!
With the dream of one day playing professional soccer in Scotland I progressed through youth soccer leagues in Canada facing both triumphs and disappointments. At the age of 13, despite being a top scorer in my league, I was unexpectedly cut from an all-star team, leading to a crisis of confidence. This coupled with my parents’ messy divorce and my desire to punish my father for his poor treatment of my mother prompted me to make the poor decision to quit the sport during my crucial teenage development years.
“Pride goith before the fall!”
Initially the regret of my decision stung, but pride was on the line as this was a statement and I felt I had to stick to it to reap the full effect. Although I turned my energies towards Baseball and Basketball to help me forget about Soccer, the stain of regret remained. Especially when the Soccer team I was meant to be on won the national championship a few years later. Despite this I held strong to my convictions staying away from competitive soccer throughout my crucial teen development years. This severely damaged my relationship with my father resulting in numerous, long periods where there was no communication between us.
Brilliant move Einstein! I managed to destroy my relationship with my father and stunted my development in a game I loved.
But what would happen if you took positive action towards tacking your regret? What’s the worst that could happen? Could we take action despite the possibility of failure?
See my blog posts on failure:
Crashing the Teaching Party: Lessons Learned from Failure Part I
Crashing the Teaching Party: Lessons Learned from Failure PART II
Or what’s the best that could happen?
My Return
Years later, after my father and I repaired our relationship, he asked me to play soccer again at the age of 18. I agreed as I had been battling with the #regret of quitting the game and with it my unrealized potential. And because I was super rusty on the ball from all the years off, I focused my attention on defense. After a successful first season in the men’s amateur league, I parlayed that into a walk-on position as a defender at Vancouver Island University. In my second year I managed to get the All-Canadian award for the best central defender in the league across Canada. This gave me the confidence to fly over to Scotland, the birthplace of soccer and my ancestral homeland to see how far I could make it.
Detractors don’t know jack…
In Scotland, I faced skepticism and challenges as a Canadian outsider trying to break into the local soccer scene. However, through sheer determination and relentless effort, I eventually earned a spot on a low level professional team. Although I wasn’t good enough to move beyond this level, this experience quashed the regret I would have held for the rest of my life if I hadn’t tried. The question of “how far can I go?” had been answered. And furthermore, it taught me two valuable lessons that I have kept with me my whole life:
1) It’s never too late.
After missing more than 4 years of soccer during my most formative years of development nobody would have given me a chance to make it where I did. Detractors in our life pose as experts, but they don’t know and you don’t know how far you can go. To put it more bluntly “they don’t know shit!”
2) Live a life without regret.
People will tell you to just forget about past regrets. Focus on the future. Ya right! Easier said than done. And sure meditation or therapy can help, but nothing serves as a stronger panacea for regret than taking positive action towards either the goal that’s causing your regret or a current or a future goal that you’d like to achieve. There’s always an opportunity to do something about it. Even if the ship that is causing you regret has sailed, you can refocus your energy and passion on some other initiative that will fill your bucket and help complete the story of your life.
Call to Action – The 7 Steps to Eliminating Regret
You might not be a soccer player, and certainly not heading to Scotland to get on a team, but I’m guessing you have something in your life that deserves some attention. Here are the 7 strategies that I use whenever I’m facing a decision between taking action and regret:
- Talk to a Friend: Sit down with a good friend and brainstorm what initiative you should pursue. It could be career based, volunteerism, running a marathon etc.
- Avoid “crabs in the bucket.” These are people we all know who try to prevent others from gaining a favourable position in something, even if it has no effect on those trying to stop them. I hear people often say “tell everyone about your goals as the more people you tell the more chance it has of coming true!” I don’t agree with this at all. Crabs in the bucket will relish the opportunity to rain on your parade. Goals can be fragile. I recommend telling the positive people in your life and eventually subject matter experts related to your goal so they can provide actual constructive feedback; not barstool, jaded analysis from someone who knows nothing about it.
- Get a Coach: Consider if a coach might be needed to point you in the right direction. Coaches are incredible. They save you so much time and money. I liken it to being lost in the Amazon jungle, the sun has gone down and the animals and critters are making predatory noises signaling that there’s some easy prey available. Then a person steps up with a map of how to get back to civilization. How valuable would that be? That’s what a coach does. They point you in the right direction saving you time, energy and money. I currently have two of them and they’re amazing.
- Diet-Exercise-Sleep: Once the direction is set, make improvements in your diet, exercise and sleep routines. This new undertaking of yours is going to take massive amounts of energy. Crappy diet, exercise and sleep will drag you down. When I took on this keynote speaking mission, I switched to a ketosis (keto) diet to fuel all the work I had to do. It changed my life (future blog coming on that)
- “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” ~Lao Tzu. Set achievable key performance indicators (KPIs) of goal achievement along the way. And celebrate the heck out of any achievement of these KPIs. You’re not a robot. Get fired up. Confidence is fuel. In the early stages of pursuing your KPIs I fully support revising Chuck D’s following quote: “never ALWAYS let a win get to your head; NEVER let a loss get to your heart”
- Don’t quit your day job (yet): If your goal is career-based do not quit your day job until you have proof of concept established, a market that will pay for your services and have proven repeatability/sustainability.
- Adopt a Party Crasher mindset: No one is going to invite you to anything. You’re going to have to crash multiple parties. Check out my blog on the ethos of Party Crashing: Crash the Party: How Saying Yes and Taking Risks Can Transform Your Life
BOOK ALERT!! My new book coming out in 2025!
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