No regrets...

I am a firm believer in no regrets, and that there are no such things as mistakes, only undesired outcomes to situations, which become learning experiences. Often we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. I rememeber a television commercial from Nike, where Michael Jordan talks about how many times he failed. The monologue in the ad goes like this...

I've missed over 9000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times I've been trusted with the game-winning shot... and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

Life can be a struggle sometimes, and there are many times where things don't seem to go our way. Those are precisely the times when we need to take a step back and look at what is happening and find the lesson. I find these times the most enlightening, and right now I feel a little frustrated that everything is just a little too easy. There's nothing that is jolting me out of my comfort zone that I am not quite happy to be in. That's why I started the three new habits for the month, which I've kept up with... and I'll have three new habits for next month, all designed to propel me forward.

However, when I look back on some of the more significant choices in my life they came out of situations that did not necessarily require such radical decisions. I however took the opportunity to take a bigger chance and what turned out to be a more rewarding path that I could have. And I know that on my life's journey there have been times when I wondered whether I had made the right decision.

In 2000 I left Australia with AU$12,000 savings bound for the U.K. with a two-year working holiday visa. After a few weeks I found getting a job not quite as easy as I had expected and I was unhappy with the room I was renting from a very weird landlady, who kept making unscheduled appearances to move the furniture around. I was feeling low, and I remember sitting on my own in Starbucks. Surrounded by 16 million people in London, I knew none of them, which made it an even lonelier place than being isolated on a desert island. Then suddenly the phone rang and I had a job interview. I started the following week. A month later I had moved to a new place and life was on the up and up. I was making friends and had a social calendar, albeit a meagre one. Moving to London was the right decision after all.

When my three-month job contract ran out, I had another job lined up as European Marketing Manager of an international media company. Could it get much better?

After two days I lost the job, because of my visa restrictions.

So I immediately called all the hiring agencies that had been so impressed with my credentials. "Sorry, there are no contracts right now. It's the end of the fiscal year and there's a federal election in two months."

Could it get much worse?

My AU$12,000 which bought me a little under 3,000 pounds had dwindled, and with rent and utilities totalling 500 pounds per month, plus food, travel and other miscellaneous expenses, I had about two months before the funds would dry up.

For two weeks I rang and re-rang all the employment agencies, making calls every day, and I waited for the phone to call me back. It didn't.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas A. Edison, US inventor (1847 - 1931)

So that's when I made the decision. I decided I would apply for any job, that might look like fun... to work on a cruise ship, as a tour manager on African safaris, a tour manager on European coach tours... anything that would be an experience of a lifetime.

I kept calling the employment agencies and looked to different ones which hired for non-marketing roles.

Then the phone rang! I had an interview with Contiki for the Tour Manager position taking tours around western Europe.

At the same time I went for an interview for a position as National Franchise Manager for a chain of Aussie style pubs in the U.K.

Suddenly I was offered both positions. The National Franchise Manager role came with a car, a laptop, great pay and perks, and the best opportunity to spread my wings in the U.K. The Tour Manager position was an experience that came with no frills.

The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland (1876 - 1950)

The safe bet was the marketing job. But I figured that this was my first and last chance to be a tour manager of western Europe, and if I wanted the marketing role in a few years time then I could work at that later.

I worked as a Tour Manager for almost six months and it was the best time of my life. I made many friends and saw many sights, but the most enduring reminder from that time is my wife, whom I met while working with Contiki. I've ended up living the last four and a half years in Canada on a path determined by my decision to change the course my life was taking and step into the unknown.

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." - Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

If you don't take a chance to make something happen in life, maybe it never will. Make small change, or a large one. In general we fail to try because we are afraid of the outcome and doubt ourselves.

The ups and downs are part of the journey that is our life. You cannot live your life's calling if you never act on the opportunities presented to you.