16 Reflections For A Life With No Regrets

We are all so familiar with “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve …”, but what about living a life with no regrets?  As far as I’m humanly aware, my life and your life will end one day.  For most of us we die once, but at some moment we all eventually end our time on this patch of terra firma.

How many of us manage to lead lives we are proud of?  Would you make changes to your past now if you could?  What would it take for you to make the conscious choice to live your life with no regrets?  Furthermore, what if the changes you can make now to live such a life could extend their reach to affect the lives of generations to come?  They can and they already do.

What would the world look like if we operated with less suspicion and more openness, more generosity and less selfishness, less judgement and more kindness, more self-control and less irresponsible behaviour?  What if we started to become more aware of our behaviour so that we could lay down the foundations to help us live a life with no regrets and send out ripples of positivity into the lives of those we know and those we’ll never even meet?

What is your why?

How many times have you heard stories of people who have faced a life-threatening experience to then decide to make the most of the life they have left?  Up until the moment of this life-changing pivot they were simply surviving.  It took a life-threatening experience for them to open their eyes to the wonder of life, to begin to sense, with every atom of their being, the energy of truly living.  Do we honestly need the threat of impending death before we begin to live our lives fully, to contribute more and to live a life with no regrets?

The power of purpose

The butterfly effect suggests that when we live a life of purpose our everyday actions can make a difference for generations to come.

You matter.  Your life matters.  When you find your purpose the secret to living a life with no regrets is revealed to you.  Viktor Frankl in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, relates his experience of being a prisoner of war during World War Two.  He first lost his father, Gabriel, at Theresienstadt, a Nazi Ghetto.  His mother, Elsa, and brother, Walter, both died at Auschwitz and his beloved wife, Tilly, died in Bergen-Belsen, having first survived the atrocities of Auschwitz.  Yet he found purpose and meaning in his life which helped him to continue to add value to countless others during his remaining years.  Consequently, within adversity he chose to find a sense of meaning and purpose.

Finding your purpose

What is your purpose, what is your meaning for being alive?  Most notably, when you die, what will people remember you for?  Will they be able to say you lived your life with purpose, a life of no regrets?  We need a sense of purpose to give our lives a framework. Without a framework, we risk getting lost in the trifles of daily life.  When you define your purpose, you will find that life tends to align itself to help you achieve it.  When positivity and love guild all that you do, you will find them reflected back at you.

To help you find and maintain your purpose consider the following 5 points:

• When you die, how would you like to be remembered?  How will people describe your contribution to life once you’ve gone?
• Look at who you are. What are your talents, what are your experiences in life, what is your personality?  Use what you have already and find a way to use your talents to live your life with purpose.
• Look for your purpose in your life’s true passion. What is your calling in life?
• What does your purpose look like in words?  Can you write a statement about your purpose?  If so, note it down and place it somewhere you can see it often.  This will help to prevent others undermining your sense of purpose.
• When you come across challenges, whether they come from family, friends or circumstances, read your life’s purpose.  It will help to ground you and strengthen your resilience to live your best life possible.

What does living with purpose mean?

Living with purpose doesn’t mean having a particular goal in mind, rather it’s living with a set of principles that help to shape and define your life.  Mother Teresa didn’t set out to be declared a saint, rather she lived a life of contribution and love.  It was her purpose in life that shaped how we remember her.  She started with one idea to look after the unwanted, unloved and uncared for people.  The flutter of her wings spread ripples of unconditional love and acceptance around the world which continues to reverberate today.

Living with purpose is not about looking good, it’s about doing good.  A life with no regrets comes from being your best contributor to life, from serving others, serving the planet, living a life in congruence with your deepest values.  It comes from living with a clear conscience.  It comes from living a life with no regrets.

Sacrifice

A life with no regrets doesn’t necessarily mean easy, although if you know what your purpose in life is, it makes the bumps in the road ahead easier to navigate.  Aligning your life with your purpose gives you a goal.  What’s more, that goal is supported within a framework of integrity, contribution and being part of something much greater than you as an individual.  Living a life of purpose gives you the strength to be accountable, honest and fair, thereby transforming your life into a cause for the greater good.  It’s about being the best version of yourself on a daily basis.

The Butterfly Effect in action

Sir Nicholas Winton saved the lives of hundreds of children in the months before the outbreak of World War Two, all destined for Nazi concentration camps.  Imagine what would have happened to those children had he not acted to help them?  Many of those children are now grandparents.  The significance of his efforts is highlighted by the fact that most of the parents, brothers and sisters who were not part of Winton’s rescue mission perished during the war.  His purpose was to save as many children’s lives as he possibly could and as a result, he saved the lives of 669 children.  I wonder how many children he indirectly created as a consequence of his purpose?

What’s your contribution?

Living a life with no regrets is about how you contribute to making the world a better place with the ripples of unconditional love you send out to the ether.  Living with purpose is the entire point of our existence.  So how do we live a life of purpose?  We choose to do so.

Choose wisely

It’s our choices that have got us to where we are today.  During the course of our waking hours, we are constantly making choices that shape our lives.  We choose who to love, we choose who to trust, we choose our career paths, or lack of them, we choose to be warm-hearted and generous, we choose to live our lives to a higher purpose.  Or we choose to be jealous and deceitful, we choose to hide our worries behind addictions and dysfunctional behaviour.  We choose to pursue different belief systems.

Our choices are endless.  The choices we make determine the lives we lead.  Your life as it is at this present moment is a result of the choices you have made up until now.  What ripples have you sent out into the universe already because of the choices you have made up to this very moment?  What made you choose to read this article?

Challenges ahoy!

There are few people who have not suffered some kind of trauma or tragedy.  Why is it that some people can turn their lives around and live a life of relative contentment while feeling at peace with the world and leading a life of contribution in line with their purpose, whereas others’ lives crumble into oblivion?  It comes down to the choices they make.

Choice doesn’t mean easy.  Your choices can involve Everest-sized effort.  Yet the path you choose leads either to a positive life experience or can lead just as easily to negativity.  We all have the potential to change how we perceive challenging situations.

Have faith in the bigger picture

Often things happen to us in life which appear to be entirely random, but what if there is a greater plan at work that we are not aware of?  What if needing to change your tyre on the side of a busy road in the freezing cold and pouring rain isn’t a way of keeping you safe from a potentially fatal accident further up the road where the lorry driver has lost his concentration for a split second?  If you can come to a point in your life where you see these apparent challenges as blessings, to acknowledge that what happens in life is supposed to happen, peace and contentment become yours.  We are surrounded by the flutter of metaphorical butterfly wings.  We are eternally creating our own vibrations just as every other living species is on the planet.  Allow positivity to flourish and thrive, deny negativity further creation.

Choose a life with no regrets

Making the choice to live a life with no regrets enables us to choose a more harmonious frame of mind.  Are you really going to waste your time worrying about a comment someone used to belittle you?  Are you really going to waste your energy on resenting a wrong?  Let the choice of a life with no regrets be your moment of surrender.  Let go of your preconceived notions of what you think your life should be.  Just let it be what it is.  Remove the emotion and turmoil.  Life isn’t supposed to turn out in a certain way.  Acknowledge where you are right now and then make the appropriate changes if necessary.

Ultimately, we all have a choice.  We can choose to be riled, to be angry, to be stressed or we can choose to let it go, to rise above the pettiness, to live our lives harmoniously.  You aren’t a pawn on somebody else’s chess board.  You choose what actions you take.  Your actions are not the responsibility of anyone else other than you.  Explore who you are, how you can contribute and how you can grow.  Choose emotions that are positive and resourceful.  Choose to deny blame and negative emotions a hold on your life.  Do something because it’s your callling.  Listen to your true passion.

Everything you do matters

Everything every one of us does impacts life moving forward.  Not only our lives, but of those we love and of those we’ll never meet.  It is easy to take for granted the very things we rely on now such as electricity, penicillin, our understanding of the physics of the universe.  These are all the result of actions people have taken to make mammoth contributions to our future.  The butterfly effect never ceases to be.  From the glint in your father’s eye, to the sperm which succeeded in fertilising your mother’s egg. To the people you were influenced by and who you influence now, to the smile you offer a passerby that stops them contemplating suicide.  Things that to us might appear unimportant can go on to have influence far beyond our imaginations.

Be your own best friend

Living a life with no regrets can inspire you to be your best, but you also need to remember not to chastise yourself when you don’t manage to be your best at every moment.  It’s easy to self-sabotage, to hurt yourself and others, even when you realise you are doing it.  Every day you are the best version of you at every moment.  Are there things you can shift and change and grow into?  Of course and there always will be.  However, having a willingness to send out flutters of love can help set you upon a path which will lead to fulfilment for you and for those whose lives you touch.  Ultimately, you owe it to yourself and you owe it to the future of the planet.

Be resourceful

The unexpected rears up in front of us and all of a sudden we need to start juggling very wobbly plates.  So how do you get back on track and deal with things?  Choosing to be resourceful.  We often lay the blame of a lack of resources as being the reason why we cannot achieve a certain goal.  However, it’s not a lack of resources that is the problem.  It is a lack of resourcefulness that allows you to choose to stay stuck in your rut.

Have you met people who have been given everything they could ever need, and still they mess up, often spending their days confined to rehab?  And then there are those people who, despite all the challenges and difficulties life throws at them, live a life of contribution, fulfilment and contentment?  Trust that who you are as a unique individual is enough to live a life with no regrets.  A lack of resources is not the problem.  It’s a lack of resourcefulness.  Trust that who you are is exactly what the world needs, have faith in the process, spread your ripples of love and revel in the delight when good comes back to you, because it will.

Ripples of love

Dare to be your best, dare to live each day as though it’s your last.  Let us create such a swell of goodliness that it reaches those who need to experience it most.  We need to cast out our own ripples of love into the far reaches of the ether and do it unconditionally.  To offer it when it isn’t deserved, regardless of the cost or reward.

Every living species creates unique ripples, concentric circles of energy that radiate into perpetuity.  What kind of ripples do you want to create?  What ripples are you creating at this very moment?  What ripples can you choose to create from now onwards to ensure you live a life of no regrets?

At the very least, begin to incorporate the following 6 steps into your daily life and you can be assured to turning those ripples of love into tsunamis of positivity:

• Question yourself how you can offer more positivity into your life for the benefit of yourself and others.
• Check yourself when you start criticizing or belittling others.  Ask yourself what you gain from doing this so that you can understand what causes the negativity and can take steps to remedy it.
• How would people describe you?  Are you positive, negative, happy, grumpy, a complainer?
• Before going to bed write down three things you are grateful for every day.  Place them in a jar and read them whenever you are feeling in need of a boost.
• Remember to tell those you love that you love them.  Don’t assume they know it, demonstrate it.
• Start and end every interaction with people with a smile.  A smile is love freely given.  A genuine smile says a thousand words and can change someone’s entire day more than you could ever dare hope for.

Make those ripples count

You will never know the full extent of the impact you make in life, but remember that whatever you do, whatever choices you make create ripples that send out energy into the universe and beyond.  So, make those ripples count.  When you flutter your metaphorical wings, do it with love, do it with kindness, do it with a sense of gratitude and by doing so you will be confident of living your best life with no regrets.

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