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Do You Regret Your Choices?

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PST

Dear Kirsten,

I’m a Fantastical, and a huge outdoors person, yet I’ve found myself working from home as a translator. Most of the time it’s fine – I can set my hours, work in my pyjamas, etc, and I do enjoy the challenge of finding the perfect words to convey the author’s original meaning. But days like today just kill me. It’s gorgeous outside – 73 degrees, sunny, and the birds are singing like crazy after yesterday’s storms. I’m sitting at my desk (where I’ve been for the past week trying to get this latest manuscript done) and I want nothing more than to be out in the open. How can I get my work done?

Signed,
Pining

Dear Pining,

Oh, honey, do I feel your pain. Those first gorgeous days of spring, when everything is green and bright…

Here’s what you need to do. Leave your desk. Go outside for an hour or so. Maybe take your lunch and eat under a tree with a book. Go for a walk or a run. Get out and get your sunshine. You’ve been sitting at your desk for far too long, and you need the vitamin D.

Then come back in, but come in with a specific goal in mind. Translate five pages, then get yourself back outside again. Keep alternating between the thing that energizes you and the thing that’s currently draining you until the job is done.

Now, let’s talk for a minute about you sitting at your desk for the past week. The reason your body is crying out so loud to get away is because you haven’t let it get away! Even for work you enjoy, you need to take a break every now and then. I want you to promise me you’ll spend one day a week out in nature and let your brain rest and recharge. I know there’s housework and bills and Great Aunt Muriel’s birthday party, but this is your life we’re talking about here. If nature is so essential to you, why are you cutting it out of your life when the going gets tough? That’s just the time you should be getting more of it! No more indoor desk marathons, all right?

Kirsten

Have a productivity question? Shoot Kirsten an e-mail and get your answer served up hot!

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Do You Regret Your Choices?

Posted: 01 Mar 2012 12:00 PM PST

When I bought a house, the last thing I expected is to have less storage space than in my apartment. But that's what happened when my parents (along with my wife's parents) decided to bring our childhood toys, books, and belongings and drop them off. All of them. A week apart from one another.

Frankly our house has never recovered.

Sure I could just throw the junk away. Or donate it to charity. But when I look through my boxes of GI Joes, Transformers, baseball cards and an assortment of other treasures, I can't help but be paralyzed by a fear that if I throw it away, I'll regret it.

I've seen shows like Antiques Roadshow. I know that random crap is often worth enough to allow me to retire. (My favorite episode of Antiques Roadshow was when the lady blacked out because she was told her stuff was worth $400,000. Priceless.)

That fear of regret paralyzes me. I don't want to be that lady who blacks out. (For multiple reasons, really.)

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Research shows we are a species driven by regret. In fact, we'll go to great lengths to avoid feeling any kind regret. This was shown when researchers gave participants a lottery ticket. Each person had exactly a 1 in 10 chance of winning. They were then asked if they wanted to trade with anyone else. Most participants decided to keep their ticket – even though a trade would not have improved (or decreased) their odds of winning. Why didn't people want to trade? Because they didn't want to give away the winning ticket. Their feelings of regret prevented them from making a change, even when their decision didn't change their odds of winning.

We process our choices through the lens of regret.

This is one of the reasons bringing your meaning to work is so important. It gives you a new lens to see your life. Without your meaning, you'll always have to face this issue of regret. By knowing what your meaning is, then you know what you can pursue and what you should avoid. It helps us prioritize and refine our decisions. It gives us something to weigh our decisions against. It's this perspective in life that is so important.

Now sometimes regret is a good thing. We should regret eating that ham sandwich that was a few weeks old. We should regret not calling our Moms enough. We should regret posting embarrassing pictures of ourselves on Facebook.

But living a life designed to avoid regret seems like a pretty miserable existence. (Or maybe I'm just saying that because I don't want to regret living that way!) But what I do know is this: if you're trying to avoid regret, that's the one guaranteed way of making sure you'll feel it. Maybe not today. But someday. You can't live in fear of regret and live life to its fullest at the same time.

When we live to avoid regret, we chicken out on the big and important decisions. We don't take a trip with a friend. We don't quit our jobs to try something new. We live to avoid mistakes. And because of this, we will never be willing to take the risks that are needed to accomplish something spectacular.

Now if only I could throw away all that junk….

Photo Credit: Refracted Moments

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vineri, 2 martie 2012

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