Why it's important to reflect in past decisions

Last time I spoke about choice and received some great comments and insights from many of you, thank you for taking the time. One in particular, has inspired me to write this blog.

Just to recap, I said that having a choice is important because each of us wants to decide what our own lives will be like. We want to be in control of our own destiny.

This is one response I received:

“Yes, we have choices. I have also learnt that at a later date, after making a choice and you feel that choice, in hindsight, was not such a great choice, you need to remind yourself that the choice you made was the right one at that time. If you reflect too much on that bad choice you cannot move forward. You need to accept the consequences of that choice and make changes to turn the choice around and not dwell on it. You can waste so much time and energy otherwise”.  Georgie Collins (Above the Line Bookkeeping)

Wise words. The definition of hindsight is - “understanding a situation only after it has happened or developed. With hindsight, I should never have….. You see your past and what you should or could have done differently to achieve a different outcome. Hindsight has 20/20 vision. You can see perfectly what you should have done but only after the fact”.

Notice when you look at things in hindsight the word “SHOULD” or SHOULDN’T prefaces your sentences? “I should’ve married a different person, I should have bought a house in that suburb instead of this, I should have invested in Apple when they were still in their garage!"

About 5-6 years ago I made a series of choices in my business which at the time seemed sound:

• I put on a full-time admin person to manage the workflow
• I put on a full-time bookkeeper
• I moved into an expensive office
• I had two levels of bookkeepers – supervisors and maintenance bookkeepers

The consequences of those choices were that I nearly lost the business in 4-short-months! Scary times believe me. Not the least of which was having to discuss the situation with my husband! Had he not agreed to put money into the business I would have been bankrupt.

What I realised was that I needed to make some other choices very quickly:

• I had to simplify the business model so I didn’t need a full-time person to administer it
• I had to downsize the office while maintaining the standard
• I had to focus on the bookkeeping systems so I didn’t need to pay supervisors

So I made those choices and took action to turn the business around. It took me 12 – 18 months and a lot of hard work and determination but, with the right model in place I have been able to grow it to the black belt business it is now. Sure I could sit back with regret and say “I shouldn’t have done this or that” but I think in some way, those choices I made earlier were a blessing. The consequences of those choices forced me to look hard at every part of my business and make changes. I wonder if my business was just doing OK whether I would have bothered making the necessary changes to make it really profitable.

Hindsight is a double-edged sword. It is valuable to build a database of knowledge and experience to make more informed choices later but if all you do is look back, wishing you made others and so consumed with regret you will be unable to move forward.

Taking responsibility for our choices is empowering because we know we can always make another. Hell on earth would be when you had made a choice and realised, with hindsight, it wasn’t the best one but you felt you weren’t in a position to make another choice to change your circumstances.