How To Avoid Lifelong Regret

When I returned home from New York City one day, I came downstairs to do some laundry. When I walked into the room and started, I was pleasantly surprised.

My dad just finished renovating our laundry room with new tile, paint, and a countertop over the two laundry machines.

Before this renovation, the laundry room was cramped, cluttered, and not enjoyable to be in. If you wanted to do laundry in the old laundry room, you would have to keep your laundry basket on the floor and keep bending over to pick up your clothes – all while standing squished between the laundry machines and the clothes that were hanging to dry behind you.

Now, after my dad’s renovation, this new laundry room had more space and felt more enjoyable to be in.

The design and organization of the room was more fitting to ‘laundry doing.’ The paint and tile made it more aesthetically pleasing. The best part: a countertop to put your laundry basket on, so that you can easily sort clothes and put them in the laundry machines (or fold them afterwards).

“Wow,” I thought to myself as I put my laundry basket on the countertop. “Doing laundry now is so nice and easy! We should have done this renovation 15 years ago when we moved into this house!”

Then I thought to myself: well, why didn’t we?

What will you have wanted to achieve 15 years from now?

This laundry room renovation was a minor thing, but it made me think about life, regrets, and goals.

I realized that most of life’s regrets are only realized in hindsight. Nobody (most of the time) intentionally does something they know they are going to regret. Regret is usually the result of one (or all) of three things:

1. Not planning ahead
2. Not trying / not taking a risk to go after your goals and dreams
3. Doing something you wish you hadn’t

The key to avoiding lifelong regret is to think backwards ahead of time.

15 years from now, how old will you be? What will you have wanted to accomplish by then? What kind of person will you want to be? What kind of relationships will you want to have?

And most importantly: how can you get started (today, and this month) towards accomplishing those goals?

Then, get started now on working towards those goals.

Think backwards ahead of time.

As long as you are still breathing and reading this, it’s never too late to get started.

A year from now you’ll wish you started today.”
– Dale Partridge