Week 374
Positive post Sunday, April 28, 2024…. Week 374. To continuously improve our safety culture at work, we hold Safety Standdowns where we Stop the Job and take a timeout to share important safety information and assess our personal safety.
I kicked off a recent Standdown by encouraging us all to listen tentatively to the speakers and identify 2 or 3 ideas we could apply to our daily routines to improve our safety. And most importantly, I urged us all to take action by integrating these ideas into our work. As an example, I shared a personal safety message related to my recent surgery and the importance of listening to our bodies and taking action when something feels wrong or irregular. In my case, it saved my life.
Recognizing that many of us are challenged with turning ideas into action, I did a little research and came across a statement that resonated with me, “Ideas without action are not ideas, they are regrets.” This also reminded me of one of my favorite sayings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
There is much written about turning ideas into action and about the importance of our actions matching what we say. There is also much written about feeling regret for the times we do not take action in our lives. While reviewing the available literature, I came across an intriguing TED Talk on regret. Although I’m the first to say that we don’t want to have regrets with our health and safety, this TED Talk, which is based on years of study, notes that we all have regrets in our lives and that we can learn from them.
The TED Talk is by Daniel H. Pink and titled, “4 kinds of Regret – and What They Teach You about Yourself. It’s 23 minutes long, however, the first 7 minutes covers the topic. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cenxg8j-Rc0&pp=ygUbNCBraW5kcyBvZiByZWdyZXQgdGVkIHRhbGsg.
Although I encourage you to watch the TED Talk, I’ve shared a few of the highlights and my takeaways below.
Through Pink’s research, he found that regrets can generally be categorized into 4 types:
Foundation – If only I’d done the work (desire for stability)
Boldness – If only I’d taken the chance (want to explore and learn)
Morality – If only I’d done the right thing (most of us want to do the right thing)
Connection – If only I’d reached out (we want love)
Additional Takeaways:
- If we understand what we regret the most, we can understand what we value the most.
- Regrets point us to the good life, give us direction to a life well lived.
- No regrets = lack of learning from our mistakes and we all make mistakes.
- Regrets help us live in alignment with our values.
- How we handle regret is a personal choice.
- Are we actually able to change what we regret, or better off letting go of a regret?
- Age matters, when younger learn from regrets, when older let go of them.
- You can let regret crush you or learn from it or let it go.
As with most of my posts, I sought a higher power to gain additional insight, in this PPS on regret. So, I opened the greatest book of all times, the Bible. As I perused through the Books of the Bible that reference regret, I noticed that repent and forgiveness were often in the same verses. As an example, 2 Corinthians 7:10 – “For godly sorrow produces a salutary repentance without regret, but worldly sorrow produces death.” I am deeply humbled and grateful that God forgives us when we repent for our sins. 1 John 1:9 – “If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.”
How have you turned your ideas into actions?
What have you learned from your regrets and what actions have you taken?
