Don’t let your regrets get in the way of your dreams

Most people who get to know me remark about how positive and optimistic I am, and while this is true, like anyone else, I get frustrated about some aspects of my life.  I wish I could have some do-overs, particularly in my teenage years – I sigh, thinking about how I could have handled things better and how, if I had done so, my life would have been so much happier.  And of course I’m conflicted just thinking such thoughts because I do believe that through your thoughts, you create your life.  What’s the point of thinking about things that you did wrong; things that you cannot change?  The truth of the matter is that if I hadn’t made all those mistakes, I couldn’t have learned what I did and the result would have been that I wouldn’t be who I am now.  We all have 20/20 hindsight – that’s easy!  What’s not so easy is believing in your dream while you feel you are hanging on by a thread.  Yes, I have felt and sometimes still feel that way.  I have also developed a solution to this feeling – a simple, logical way to deal with this.

The logic is this:  you become what you think!  If you think happy thoughts, you feel good and similarly, the opposite is true.  Put another way, like attracts like – what you think, you will attract to yourself.  Given this logic, there is no room in my life for thinking about “shoulda, coulda, wouldas” and most of the time, these days I remember that.  There are moments when I fall off the wagon, but at those times I start thinking about how much I have to be grateful for and make a mental gratitude list.  There is no doubt that I’m blessed. 

However, think about this:  just a few decades ago, girls and women didn’t have the opportunity to know that they could make their dreams come true.  But they had dreams anyway.  They knew that it might be near impossible to ever achieve their dreams, but they took the next step anyway.  They braved the dream stealers, weathered the storms and used their obstacles as stepping stones.  When they reached their dreams, they opened the door of possibility for women everywhere.  That’s true courage.  If it wasn’t for them, my path would be a lot harder.  These women spent their lives creating opportunities for women like me, and that thought changes everything! 

10 Lessons for Women by Women: How to sail your ship

“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.”  ~ Louisa May Alcott

Always know there is value in the storms that occur in your life.  Once you recognize this, you can truly make the most of every opportunity – opportunities often come disguised as extreme adversity.  And the way you allow the adversity to shape you determines whether you have gained something from it.  Often heartaches are our greatest teachers if we allow them this place in our lives. 

As a girl or woman, you may have experienced injustice because of your gender; you may have had opportunities taken away from you and perhaps you have had people around you who tried to destroy your self-esteem.  The real question is:  what has this taught you?  Has it taught you to work even harder for what you want or to hold onto your dreams no matter what?  Or do you just feel oppressed by what happened to you?  The events that you’ve experienced cannot change, but you can re-examine them and choose to learn something empowering from these events.  You can choose to become a stronger and more capable person because of these lessons.  It’s not about the storms – eventually it’s all about how you choose to sail your ship!