Using Regret To Fuel Your Will.

I’m an extremely lazy person by nature.

If a bag of chips is out of reach, I’m not going to think to eat it.

If I’ve forgotten something in the car, it can wait till I’m back in the car for retrieval. I’m not going out specifically to get it.

But I’ve created and built my life around forcing myself into situations to undo my lazy tendencies.

8 AM undergraduate classes? Why not, it’ll force me to wake up at a regular hour.

Sleep on a pile of clean unfolded laundry? Why not, it’ll keep me from sleeping too deeply so I don’t miss my alarm.

I don’t know how or why, but I became aware of my laziness early in life.

So much so, that I forced myself into the International Baccalaureate Program for high school.

Embarrassingly, this was not strongly supported by my elementary school teachers or my family.

I was, in my mind, a decently well-performing elementary school student. But apparently not good enough by some teachers’ standards. The concern was I might not excel and instead suffer or struggle in school.

I specifically remember having to meet with my French teacher with my parents in elementary school to have a discussion reviewing her concerns with my ability to succeed in the French component (my IB Program didn’t offer many of the available language options so French was the only language option).

I don’t quite understand how I wasn’t demoralized by that. How I still decided to pursue IB or even why I would care to work hard in high school.

But I wasn’t demoralized, didn’t lose sleep over it, and didn’t second-guess it.

I closed the door on second doubts, on other opportunities in high school and whole-heartedly pursued IB because I had it in my head I’d regret not pushing myself.

And I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

Through the increasing challenge, I found a group of high-achieving friends, I identified a degree of resilience in myself that until that point, I didn’t know existed, and I experienced for myself the challenges I wanted.

All my life, in specific moments, I’ve purposefully made many life choices to avoid regret. A sort of ‘burning your ships’ lifestyle that I ultimately believe altered or steered my life path differently.

Another example is when I decided to get shoulder surgery because of multiple shoulder dislocations. Having dislocated it while throwing a ball, b-boying, jumping and reaching for something, exercising and swimming, enough was enough.

I had to do something about it.

Now, I could’ve done more physiotherapy and rehabbed the shoulder. But I knew I was lazy. I knew I’d start with the rehab consistently while the injury was fresh but I’d get lazy and indifferent as time went on. After all, I tried that for a couple of years. I opted to finally get surgery for it so I would finally know in my core that I tried everything to remedy the situation. If I dislocated it again even after the surgery, I’d eventually have to accept that I couldn’t continue the same types of exercises and activities.

My point is, I opted for surgery so that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to regret not getting surgery.

Getting Uncomfortable - A Part Of The Process.

Sometimes, choosing to act can result in discomfort or put you in an uncomfortable situation.

IB was an uncomfortable situation because I had to work hard and I couldn’t slack off.

Getting shoulder surgery was an uncomfortable position because I lost a lot of muscle mass, I was off work for a month, and I couldn’t use my shoulder for a long time.

But in comparison to the regret you will feel for not pursuing these options, I know personally that the regret would gnaw at me constantly.

Will I regret turning down an offer?

Will I regret missing an opportunity?

Will I wake up one day and realize I haven’t achieved what I wanted?

Will I wake up one day and realize I haven’t moved forward or taken advantage of my time on Earth?

The FOMO of missing out on my potential keeps me moving forward. That is the thing that gives me the confidence to do something uncomfortable.