The Things I Never Regret — and the Ones I Always Do
The high-return habits we skip, the low-return habits we can’t stop.
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There are only a handful of things I never regret doing:
Working out
Meditating
Talking to someone and getting things off my chest
Working out is ingrained. That habit stuck, and it helps me fight the autopilot behaviours I do regret.
The other two?
Meditation pulls me out of attention traps.
Talking to someone lifts the weight off my chest every time.
Yet I never seem to actually do them.
Meanwhile, the things I do regret are effortless:
Scrolling in a fog
Listening to low-level people repeat opinions they just saw online
Watching TV every night even though I haven’t enjoyed anything since my sixth rewatch of The Sopranos
Reading the news—always a net negative, full of rage and opportunity cost. Most people do it. You can’t, if you want an unusual life.
And the morale-sapping reality is: there’s no neat fix.
No clever system that makes this go away.
Just the daily, boring battle of noticing and trying:
Do the regretful behaviour.
Notice you’re in the fog.
Pause.
Bring your attention back.
Do something less regretful.
Slip again.
Repeat.
So here’s the dare: make your own never-regret list.
Write down the things you always feel better for doing—and send them to me. I’ll share my thoughts.
If you can’t name any, that’s a problem.
And if you can but you’re still not doing them—welcome to midlife.
That’s the fog.
And if you want help finding your list—or sticking to it—that’s exactly what I work on in 1:1 coaching.
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