SUMMARY 

• Have you ever thought about what the most common regrets are for someone right before they die? A nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware looked after many people who were in their final days and hours and documented all of these regrets in a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. In this episode I’ll take you through those 5 regrets and give you some powerful tools that you can use to make sure that you’re avoiding them and living a fulfilling life.
• The first regret is “I wish I had the courage to live a life that was true to myself rather than what others expected of me.” The main thing that Bronnie found in her work was that so many people felt that they weren’t expressing their true selves and had a regret of unfulfilled dreams. To stop this from materialising in your life ask yourself what dreams could you be pursuing that you’ve given up on?
  
• The number two regret was “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” I’ve certainly felt this a lot and I know many people feel so caught up on the treadmill of work that they miss the companionship with their partner, the youth of their children and those good times with their family and friends. One of the most powerful things that you can do to combat this is to have a shutdown routine – a line of demarcation where the workday ends and home life begins, so that you’re not constantly working.
  
• The number three regret is “I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.” This is another one that affects all of us in different ways. Do you project something which is different from what you actually feel? Do people know what you feel about certain things? The way to combat this regret is to simply imagine your most courageous self and ask – what would this version of me do? 
  
• The number four regret was “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” So many times, Bronnie explains in her book that towards their final days, people are trying to find long lost friends and they run out of time. So make sure you’re doing what you can to stay in touch. Are you organizing those lunches, those gatherings, those get-togethers? What about the idea of having an annual trip with the friends that matter most to you? If you don’t maintain those connections, you’ll regret it later.
• Number five is, “I wish I had let myself be happier.” So many times, we forget that happiness really is a choice. Lots of bad things can happen to us, but we never lose our ability to choose how we respond to those things. One simple practice, which I don’t always get right, but try my best to implement is to start every day with the phrase of “Today is going to be a great day” so that I’m bringing happiness into the day. Don’t forget to laugh and have a good time as well because laughter is the best medicine. 

TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever thought about what the most common regrets are for someone right before they die? Probably not, because let’s face it ,death is a pretty scary thing. A nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware actually looked after many people who were in their final days and hours. She went around collecting all of those regrets and she created this incredible book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Today I don’t want to just take you through those regrets, but even more importantly, I want to give you some powerful tools or reflections that you can be using to make sure that you’re living a life that is one of opportunity and not one of regret.

My name is Eric Partaker and I help CEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders, and individuals reach their full potential in business and life. Part of that work is about helping them make sure that they’re overcoming their fears, being more courageous, making sure that they don’t live a life of regret because let’s face it, we only have one life to live and we want to absolutely make the most of that. 

So regret number one is I wish I had the courage to live a life that was true to myself rather than what others expected of me. The number one thing that Bronnie found in her work was that so many people felt that they weren’t expressing their true selves. So many people had this deep regret of unfulfilled dreams. So many people felt like they weren’t doing all the things that were on their list, perhaps as a child, or in their youth. And they suddenly gave in to the requests of others.

They stopped expressing who they truly were. So the reflection, the question for you is, are there any dreams that you’ve given up on? Think back to your childhood, are there some things that you wanted to do and somewhere along the way, if for some reason you just decided that you weren’t capable of doing them? Are there things that you still would like to do? Are you not being a hundred percent truthful and honest with others about what you really want to be doing with your life? You should be really expressing the truest of who you are because you don’t want to get towards the end or at the end and look back and think, I didn’t pursue my dreams. It’s better to try and to have felt as they say, rather than to not try at all.

So what haven’t you even tried yet? At least by trying, even if you don’t achieve whatever it is, you’ll know that you gave it your best effort. When I was growing up, my parents used to always say to me, shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you’ll still land amongst the stars. I still hold that true to my heart today. So once again, what dreams could you be pursuing that perhaps you’ve given up on or what dreams could you be pursuing, or goals could you be going after that really express you and everything that you’re about, everything that you want to achieve with your life? 

The number two regret was simply, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. How many of you have felt that one before? You might be feeling it right now, this week. I’ve certainly felt it tons of times. It really relates to what this regret is really about, is that people feel like they were so caught up on the treadmill of work that they miss the companionship with their partner, that they missed out on the youth of their children, that they missed out on those good times with their family and friends. And one of the most powerful things that you can do, which I’ve implemented in my life is have a shutdown routine. I’ve talked about this loads of times in various places, but it is just so important. You need a line of demarcation where the workday ends and home life begins, so that you’re not constantly working. Have a shutdown ritual, where you make a final review of the day, look at your calendar the next day, choose your top three things and boom, you schedule them in and that’s it, you’re done for the day.

You’re going to transition from being deeply focused on work to now being deeply focused on your family. Don’t end up having that regret of, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. 

The number three regret is, I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. How are you in life? Do you project something which is different from what you actually feel? Do people know what you feel about certain things? Are there certain things that you’ve just kept a tight lip about that you want to say, but you haven’t? Are you acting from the vantage point of your most courageous self? Think about this – within you, there is a version of you, your most courageous version of you. How would that version of you express your feelings towards others? The most courageous version of you. If you summon that version of you and ask them to help express those feelings, what advice would they give you?

What would he or she say? Think about that for a moment, because we can start changing immediately. We can start changing from, I’m not having the courage to express my feelings, to having the courage to express my feelings, but we achieve that by practicing it. We achieve it by doing it. 

The number four regret was, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. So many times, Bronnie explains in her book that towards their final days, people are trying to find long lost friends and they run out of time. They’re not able to connect with them. They so desperately want to see them, and they feel all this regret for not having maintained the relationship over time. I’m not talking about all your social media connections. I’m talking about the people who energize you, the people who make you grow. The late Jim Rohn has this fantastic quote, he said, “We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” Use that as a filter for building your friendship network. Are you spending the right time with the right five people? Are you sending out those quick hellos? Are you organizing those lunches, those gatherings, those get-togethers? What about the idea of having an annual trip with the friends that matter most to you? If you don’t maintain those connections, you’ll, you’ll feel that later, right? You really will. So make sure that you’re cultivating and looking after and nurturing those friendships. 

Number five is, I wish I had let myself be happier. So many times, again, we forget that happiness really is a choice. Lots of bad things can happen to us, but we never lose our ability to choose how we respond to those things.

I have a simple practice. I don’t always get it right, but I try to start every day with the phrase of, today is going to be a great day. So that I’m bringing happiness into the day, that positivity into the day. And the other great thing is just being silly and laughing and having a good time. Some of our most magical moments in our household as a family typically occur around the dinner table. It’ll just be hysterical laughter about something completely silly, often something one of the young kids has said. We’ll be in tears and it’s moments like that, that really take the edge off, that really make me settle, relax, and laughter really is the best medicine. So do you have enough of it in your life? 

Now, some of these regrets you may think, “Well, gosh, I already have these,” but there’s a difference between unintelligent regret and intelligent regret. Unintelligent regret generates feelings of guilt and shame because it’s so focused and it dwells on the past. Intelligent regret lets go of the past. It realizes that we have the choice to create a better future moment to moment to moment right now. So let’s all choose wisely so that we can live not a life of regret, but one of prosperity, happiness and abundance, because these are the things as people striving to achieve our full potential that we all want.