There are times when you will hear someone say, “I have no regrets.” I’m sure that they believe what they are saying, but I would argue that someone who truly has no regret is either someone who didn’t try to do anything risky, or simply didn’t care about what they were doing in the first place. For me, regret is the natural outcome of caring about the things I do with my time, in my relationships, and with my teams. Regret can be caused by a wide variety of things: poor decisions, missed opportunities, miscalculations, failures, or just plain saying something stupid to someone we care about. I believe that all leaders invariably have a healthy amount of regret in their lives, because that means that they have attempted to live life to the fullest, stepping out and taking some risks, as well as caring about the outcome. We all know that things don’t always go the way we plan, and since we care, we’ll have regrets. I know I have a ton of them!
But here is the good news: we can move from regret to resolve. We can take the things which we’ve blown and use them to fortify our resolve to do things better the next time. We can use the regret we feel as motivation to never make certain mistakes again.
You’ve heard me say before, “This book changed my life.” And each time, I mean it. So you can believe me when I say that the 2007 book Reposition Yourself by T.D. Jakes changed my life, because it did. In fact, each time I pick it up, it renews my spirit and changes my life all over again. In this book Jakes deals with regret and the fact that “life isn’t fair!” He states, “There is nothing worse than reaching the end of your life and wondering what could have happened, or should’ve happened, but somehow didn’t happen.” Jakes takes on the reality that we all run the risk of missing out on the life we say we want. He continues,
If you’re dissatisfied with your life, long for much more, and feel the desire to take some risks and make some changes, but those impulses are countered and blocked by your past disappointments, by the safety of your present status quo lifestyle, and by the uncertainty of your future, you are on the fence. You are flirting with the tragedy of a live wasted and regretted.
Jakes doesn’t pull punches when speaking of the risk we all face. However, back to the good news. He clearly spells out how we can move from our regret to a new spirit of hope and renewal if we are willing to reposition ourselves, make changes, and resolve to move forward. He states,
You must realize that no mistake – no matter how large, costly, unacknowledged, or painful – can cost you the power to change your life. We must remain vigilant as we move forward, learning from our past mistakes and forgiving ourselves for yesterday’s failures. We must remain true to ourselves and our heart’s dreams, never settling for less than our full potential.
In other words, leaders must turn their regret into resolve. If you are like me, you have regrets, maybe lots of them. But as Jakes makes clear in the book, we can always have another chance to get things right. It may not be easy to do, but as long as we still breathe, we have the opportunity and we should never give up. We can still become all that we’ve dreamed for our lives, as long as we resolve to stay in the game. Another great quote from Jakes pertains to staying in the game: “You cannot hit the target if you don’t aim the gun.” How very true. Resolve from regret must be intentional. We have to aim the gun. I plan to, and I hope you will too.
Lead well.