The full interview - No Regrets

I was recently interviewed by Sinead Nolan, journalist with the Sunday World, for an article on "No Regrets". The full interview is below:

The Creative Coach:

Louise Nevin helps people do what they are passionate about and create an action plan, so they can achieve success on their own terms. Her coaching programs inspire people to embrace their ideas and show them a road-map to a successful future. Also known as The Creative Coach, she helps people who want to thrive in life, career and business.

1. Is it detrimental to your health to dwell on your regrets and if so why?
Anything from relationship regrets, health regrets, career regrets, financial regrets and parenting regrets can dominate our daily thoughts and drain us of energy. Regret is a powerful emotion, which everyone deals with differently. It is a negative reaction to past experiences, behaviours and reactions. Regret can influence what you believe about yourself and create a distorted picture in your mind over time. Regret creates increased levels of stress and anxiety in our personal and professional lives. Prolonged feelings of regret can lead to various physical problems preventing you enjoying a happy fulfilled life.

2. What useful part can regrets play in your life as a whole?
Do you want to re-live sadness, annoyance, embarrassment, shame and guilt over and over again? Instead, focus your thoughts on what you can do to improve on past decisions, learn from your mistakes and move on. When you change your perspective and look at a more positive approach to dealing with similar experiences, you can reverse the effect this negative emotion can have on your life.

3. Have you found that worrying and thinking about the past is common to women?
Worrying and thinking about the past is a common issue for women, however men also experience these emotions. In my experience working with clients, everyone deals with these emotions in different ways and on different levels.
Women can lack self-confidence in their abilities, which can lead to self-doubt, anxiety and fear of failure. I encourage clients to step outside their comfort zone and change those habits that are having a negative impact on their lives. Personal preparation and developing creative ways of dealing with new challenges, increases a person’s confidence in their own strenths and abilites. Actively striving towards your goals, means you are constantly looking for new ways to achieve success, which leaves less room for regret.

4. How can regrets hold us back in life (for example going for our new goals and being afraid we might fail)?
Every day I speak to people about what holds them back from achieving the success they want and deserve and the reason I hear most often is, fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of hearing no and, yes, fear of success. Focus on reaching the life and career success and happiness you deserve - not on your fear of failure.
Focusing only on what you could have, should have, would have, ensures you stay stuck in the past and possibly miss out on an opportunity available now, which could potentially change your future for the better.
Was the regret something beyond your control? Sometimes things are just beyond our control. Concentrate on what you can control and let go of what you cannot.

5. How can you be proactive to avoid worrying about the past and how can you learn to move forward?
Everyone has regrets, experienced failures or made mistakes in the past. It can be difficult to appreciate the good things in life-a supportive family, good health, a cosy home when you’re full of regret.
To achieve success in life and career you must learn from your past, but not dwell on it. Take note of any negative patterns in your behaviour that could be tweaked and move forward with the new knowledge you have gained.

Some tips to effectively deal with regret are:

Write about your regrets, worries and feelings - Keep a journal and express how you feel about the regret. This is a good habit to develop to help solve your worry issues. Ask yourself; ‘how did I handle the situation/decision/choice etc?’, ‘are there ways I could I have delt with it differently?’, ‘what am I worrying about?’, ‘what options do I have?’, ‘what have I learned about myself and my reactions?’.
This process can be insightful and provides a new perspective on how you can deal with difficult situations if they arise in the future. You will also see your accomplishments and all you have conquered. When those doubts and negative feelings reappear, reflect on just how much you have achieved. And when you’ve narrowed down your options start to act on them.

List the Pros and Cons
Make a list of all possible outcomes of a decision you are about to make (this could be applied when making a Bigger decision where time is available to do this). Write down all the pros and cons and prioritise in order of of most important.

Create your Life & Career Vision – creating a clear life & career vision establishes a foundation for effective decision making and direction. Identify your values, develop your short and long term goals, establish what matters most to you, what brings you joy in life and create an action plan to work towards making this vision a reality. When we honour our values life is good, working against our life vision can cause worry and regret.

Once you have completed these steps, concentrate on the present and move forward. Learn from past choices, right or wrong there is a lot to be learned.
As the wonderfully witty Lucille Ball once said;
"I'd rather regret the things I have done than the things that I haven't ."


For appointments contact Louise at:
Contact: 085 1650798
E-mail: louise@louisenevin.com
Web: www.louisenevin.com
Location: Oscailt, 8 Pembroke Road, Dublin 4