Reflections at 40 – Regret – 4/40

To celebrate turning 40, I’ve challenged myself to blog for each of the 40 days leading into my birthday. This is post number 4. You can read all the posts here.

I’m not one for acting or speaking rashly; or making decisions in the heat of the moment. Which is why, when I look back over the past 40 years, there are only two things I genuinely regret.

The first is a bit lame as far as regrets go. And probably more a wish than a regret. I wish I’d ‘clicked’ with swimming earlier.

Swimming fast is hugely reliant on correct body position in the water. My body finally found that position three months before I was done with triathlon forever. I often wonder what I could’ve achieved if it had happened 2-3 years earlier. I regret not doing more to make it happen earlier. That said, I’m not sure what else I could have done to hurry the process along. For the longest while I was training 5-6 times a week for swimming in amongst a full-time job and the 7 other sessions I was doing for running and cycling. So, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be!

My other regret is that I didn’t set my business up to run without me in it before my first child was born.

Now, some people proudly work from hospital when they’ve had their baby, and all power to them. Me? I didn’t really want to spend my first day as a new mum sending invoices and checking emails. Nor did I want to be jumping on the laptop every minute my newborn was asleep once we were home.

I didn’t really have a choice, however. We were in the middle of building three houses so my income needed to be maintained. The business was barely profitable and the only way to keep it in the black (and maintain my income) was to work every minute I wasn’t sleeping, feeding the baby or doing housework.

It was insanity, of course. And I’d pay a hefty price later on.

But, it did teach me the importance of buffers. Especially financial buffers.

Buffers give you choices people!

In the absence of choices, however, all I could do was keep on keeping on while reverting to the one thing that always helped me cope when life got crazy …

Do. More. Stuff.

 

Image credit: Aziz Acharki