How to Deal With "I Should've Done This Sooner" Syndrome - Think Deep

How to Deal With “I Should’ve Done This Sooner” Syndrome

There’s not a single person in this world that hasn’t suffered from this syndrome.

It’s one of life’s cruel tricks.

You should’ve picked up this hobby, managed your finances better, invested, started that business idea, made peace with a good friend, etc.

You finally do it, see the benefits, then you back track years into the past, imagine how different life would be if you did then what you’re doing now and it’s one of life’s most bitter pills to swallow because you JUST KNOW.

You know.

You know your life would be SO MUCH BETTER.

It kills you.

You wallow in misery.

Then your defense mechanism kicks in.

You comfort yourself by saying you can’t change the past, only learn from it, which is definitely true.

And add to that, you rationalize by saying to yourself:

“Who really knows what life might’ve been like if it happened?”

Yes your life might’ve been better had you implemented what you know now but what if you got a stroke and died a few months later after that?

That kind of soothes the wound a bit but it still smarts.

And the worst thing about all this is we don’t even seem to cure ourselves of this syndrome.

It happens again and again and again, occurring years apart. There’s this lag time, this dormant period where it hides and then strikes. Hides and then strikes.

There’s two things to take away from all this in terms of how to deal with it.

First, obviously you couldn’t have known then what you know now. You can’t cram years of experience, go back in time and implant all that in your mind.

But perhaps that’s what it takes – years of building up before a change is made. Perhaps that’s the way we work.

BUT

A cure DOES exist.

And we all know what it is.

The cure is to implement.

NOW.

If you have a good idea that’s sensible, don’t put it off. If it makes sense to you, try it.

Start small.

Handwritten thank you cards.

How refreshing they are in a day and age where everything is digital and immediate.

Who ever gets a handwritten thank you letter via snail mail these days? Simple things like that.

They might have the intended effect you want. They may not.

That’s not important.

The HABIT of doing these types of things NOW IS IMPORTANT.

You have NO IDEA how many of these “I should’ve done this sooner” syndrome type viruses are lying in your mind.

The list goes on and on and on.

Prevention is the best medicine for health and for this syndrome. If the idea is good and sensible, try it. If it works, great. If not, no biggie.

Either way, you save yourself a ton of time.

And if that logic isn’t enough to convince you, think about this.

Each idea that you “hold” in your mind by not implementing is acting as an opportunity cost in terms of the next idea that can fill it when that space is vacated through doing.

In other words, by not implementing a “should do this idea”, new ideas can’t come in and take that space. They’re held back in a place where you can’t see them.

And what if that next idea that’s waiting in the wings that never reveals itself because you’re too damn lazy to do what you know you should do now instead of years from now, is THE IDEA that will forever change your life.

THE IDEA.

That will change your life forever.

The opportunity cost is way too high here.

WAY TOO HIGH.

Considering the fact that YEARS go by before this syndrome strikes people. Then a couple years go by again before it strikes because people only implement one idea after several, several years of “knowing” it, but not doing it.

Bottom line, yes you can rationalize this syndrome away by saying you can’t go back in time and change the past but that only works the first couple of times this syndrome hits.

After that, the onus is on you to be more responsible so this syndrome never appears again by shutting it down before it even has a chance to manifest.

You do that through prevention by implementing now.

Again, doesn’t matter if the effect is favorable or not.

Just the habit of doing it NOW instead of getting the should’ve done it syndrome years later on.

You never know if that idea that will change your life forever is waiting in the wings.

Waiting to be revealed by implementing the idea in front of it.

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