Regret Is a Form of Perfectionism (This Changed How I See My Entire Life)

1. 0:00 – 1:14

   The perfection myth: chasing curated lives and celebrity fantasies

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      So I thought as a 14-year-old boy, "Wow, God, if I could be Jon Bon Jovi, my life would be perfect," right? Touring the world, screaming fans, writing killer album after killer album, if you like that sort of thing at the time, right? Whatever your [chuckles] choice might be. But somewhere along the line, I believed that it was possible, and many of us believe that perfectionism is possible. I think it's got so much worse now with social media where we see these avatars online. They're not real. Taylor Swift, our impression of Taylor Swift is not real. Yes, she is real. She exists. But actually, what we're shown about her is v- carefully curated by a marketing machine. I'm not having a go at them for doing that. It is a business, right? I'm not criticizing Taylor Swift. If you love Taylor Swift and you like going to her concerts, that is great, but many of us are growing up with the belief that that is possible, and it's not possible, right? If... I'm- I've learned as an adult over the last years, Chris, I'm 47 now, and I think, "Wow, if I was Jon Bon Jovi, what would it have been genuinely like being on the road for 300 days a year?"

   2. SPSpeaker1:12

      Hmm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12

      "What's it like for your wife?"

   4. SPSpeaker1:14

      Hmm.

2. 1:14 – 2:17

   Cutting ‘reliances’ and choosing priorities over perfection

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14

      "What's it like for your children growing up? What was it like sleeping on a tour bus with sweaty crew night after night?" Like, genuinely because I think I said to you just before we got on the mics, Chris, I'm in such a great place these days. Like, like, honestly, I've never felt this good. Like, I feel really... I feel grounded. I feel calm. I feel that I've, I've managed to come to a point where I, I get what's truly important for me. Not for anyone else, but for me.

   2. SPSpeaker1:43

      What's changed?

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:47

      What's changed is I've cut a lot of these reliances that were tying me down, that I, that I talk about in this book, right? Bit by bit, I've gone through the process of cutting them, this reliance on perfection, realizing, no, perfect is a myth, Rangan. You cannot achieve perfect. It's not possible, right? So get really clear on what your priorities are this week. Everything in life has a consequence, right? N- this is, this is something I truly get these days, Chris, in a way that I never

3. 2:17 – 3:17

   “Write your own happy ending”: a deathbed values exercise

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:17

      got before. We make choices in life, and those choices have consequences. Too often we only think about the upside of our choices and not the downsides. And so I think last time I came on your show a few years ago, I mentioned this little happiness exercise that I've used with patients for years, I use myself, which is this very simple write your own happy ending exercise where you imagine yourself on your deathbed, and you imagine looking back on your life, what are the three things I will want to have done in my life? And for me, the last time I did that, it was I want to have spent quality time with my friends and family. I will want to have had time to, um... I will want to have had time to actually pursue my passions. And thirdly, I will want to have done something that has improved the lives of other people. I genuinely think if I was on my deathbed now, those are the three things I will want. Now, I can't say that for

4. 3:17 – 4:47

   Turning values into weekly ‘happiness habits’

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:17

      sure 'cause I'm not there, but I'm imagining. And then the second part of the exercise is you come back to the present where you then pick three happiness habits, right? So what are three things I would need to do each week, my happiness habits, that will guarantee, or pretty much guarantee I get the happy ending that I just defined that I want. So for me, and I, I don't think it's changed in the last year and a half or so, it's literally... And I have it on my fridge at home because I wanna be visually triggered by it every day, so I don't get caught up in what I might be able to achieve or what I might be able to do. I have... I, I put down on my list, can I have five meals each week with my wife and kids while I'm fully present and not thinking about work, okay? It's an arbitrary number that works for me. It may not work for someone else, but it works for me, right? Secondly, if I have time to play my guitar, write a song, or go for a long run each week, then I know I've found time to pursue my passions. And thirdly, if I release an episode of my podcast each week, which I've been doing for seven years now, I will be doing something each week to improve the lives of others. It's such a simple exercise, Chris, but I tell you, in a world where we have infinite things competing for our attention, and we often think that we'll only do the important things when everything in our life is done-

   2. SPSpeaker4:37

      Hmm

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:37

      ... and nothing in... everything in our life is never done these days, it forces me in a really beautiful way to focus on these are my top priorities.

5. 4:47 – 6:37

   Regret as perfectionism: the ‘I could have decided perfectly’ trap

   1. SPSpeaker4:47

      Just going back to the, uh, perfectionism thing, regret, obviously people are going to do things. We get toward the end of our lives. We grow up. We accumulate regret. Do you think regrets are a form of perfectionism in that way?

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:58

      Yeah.

   3. SPSpeaker5:00

      If only I could have threaded the needle perfectly. If only I could have danced through this minefield without triggering one of them.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:05

      Yeah. This is one of my favorite sections in the book. This is one of the latest additions before I submitted it, is this idea that regret is a form of perfectionism, right? Are you tired of waking up exhausted even when you've technically had enough sleep? Do you feel like you're constantly doing everything right, yet you still feel stuck? You're not broken. You're just running the wrong habits. I've taken everything I've learnt from helping thousands of patients and boiled it down into five tiny daily habits that can transform your life in just 30 days. No overwhelm, no pressure, just small shifts that reset your energy, mood, and mind. If you're ready to stop surviving and start feeling like yourself again, download my free guide now. Just click on the first link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. You've got absolutely nothing to lose except the version of you that's been running on empty for far too long.And I wanted to talk about this with you today because I've just seen your blog from Australia-

   5. SPSpeaker6:16

      Mm-hmm

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:17

      ... on YouTube, right? And you're on stage, and I don't know if this is still your view or not, but my recollection of what I saw was that you said on stage, or certainly the bit in the vlog, was about this idea that we choose our regrets.

   7. SPSpeaker6:31

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:32

      So can I present my perspective, which I, I see it a little bit differently than that.

   9. SPSpeaker6:36

      Mm-hmm.

6. 6:37 – 9:25

   A life with no regrets: “I did the best I could then”

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:37

      Okay. I think it is possible to live a life of no regrets. I really do. I don't think we necessarily have to choose our regrets. The definition of regret is when we look back on something with sadness or disappointment, this, this idea that we could have done something differently. I used to look back on many of m- my past experiences with guilt and shame, and I think that's what regret can do. Because the reason I say that regret is a form of perfectionism is because at its core is this idea that I could have made perfect decisions. It was possible, and I'm a failure because I didn't. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it keeps us trapped into the past, and it leads to guilt and shame. And in terms of making changes that last, it won't allow you to do that because you keep beating yourself up in your mind over the things that you wish you'd done differently. Now, you can live two regret... You can live a life of no regrets in two different ways, right? You can live it, and I'm not suggesting people do this, in a way where it's like, "Yeah, screw everyone else. It's my life. I'm gonna be myself and do what I do, and I'm gonna put it with the consequences." But when I say you can live a life of no regrets, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about it a slightly different way, which is I can look back on my past, and I can learn from past experiences. I can choose to believe, which I do, it's a choice, you don't have to believe this, but I would argue that your life is much happier and calmer if you choose to believe this. I choose to believe that I was always doing the best that I could based on the information I had at the time. If I choose to adopt that belief, then there's no room for regret. I was making the best decision I could. And now with hindsight, I go, yeah, you know what? If I'm faced with that situation again, I can act differently, and I will act differently because now I know better. I will do better, but I couldn't have done better back then. And in terms of your question before, Chris, why is it that at this stage in my life I feel so good? One of the reasons, there's many, one of the reasons is because I no longer have any regrets. Every single one of my past experiences has led to me being the person that I am today. Without any of those experiences, I wouldn't have been the same person, right? I'm informed by all of those things. So I very much do look at my past, but I use it as a way of learning about myself. I think the other way... Well, I'll come to the other way in a minute. What, what's... You said in that video that you think you have to choose your regrets.

   2. SPSpeaker9:20

      Mm-hmm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:20

      I'm presenting a slightly different perspective-

   4. SPSpeaker9:22

      Mm-hmm

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:22

      ... I think.

   6. SPSpeaker9:23

      Mm-hmm.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:23

      What's your take on that?

7. 9:25 – 12:14

   Chris’s ‘choose your regrets’ framing and opportunity cost

   1. SPSpeaker9:25

      Yes, I like the idea that i- it's very equanimous to think I did the best that I could with the information that was available at the time that I made that decision. I can't go back and change it. There's no, there's no usefulness to me having that. I think m- maybe regret, this sort of sadness or wistfulness or nostalgia, wishing that things had been different, perhaps that was a slightly imprecise bit of language that I used. What I'm trying to refer to is that you'll always have this open loop in the back of your mind that you wonder whether things could have been better-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:55

      Yeah

   3. SPSpeaker9:56

      ... whether or not you could have done something just a little bit better, or whether that was the right decision, new job or a relationship, or go to the gym or go to the theme park or whatever it is that you should have done because opportunity cost demands that you do one thing to sacrifice another.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:10

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   5. SPSpeaker11:28

      And because you don't get to run life back and split test it, work out if the theme park was better than the gym or the gym was better than the theme park, you're always gonna have that what if in the back of your mind. So for me, this was a way for people maybe to arrive at probably not too dissimilar of a situation as yourself, which is, look, some degree of wistful uncertainty about the past is inevitable. Holding onto it is pointless-

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:56

      Yeah

   7. SPSpeaker11:56

      ... because you don't get to do two of those. You don't get to run it back again. Um, and when you're faced with a decision, when you think, oh, am I going to... W- which route am I going to go down? Consider which regret you could bear living withAs opposed to which one you couldn't bear, which decision you couldn't bear living without

8. 12:14 – 12:52

   Don’t judge your younger self with today’s lens

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:14

      Yeah. No, I like that. I really like that. I think this is a really interesting topic. The other way of looking at it, Chris, is, you know, at 47 now, am I gonna really regret things I did in my 20s, in the sense that I was a different person then?

   2. SPSpeaker12:27

      Mm-hmm

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:27

      But I'm a different person today than I was 12 months ago, right? So am I gonna now judge my 20-year-old self through the lens of hopefully a wiser man who's become a father, who has much more experience in the world? It seems a little unfair to judge my younger... the younger version of me-

   4. SPSpeaker12:47

      Mm-hmm

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:48

      ... through my current lens

   6. SPSpeaker12:49

      Like, yeah, look at how lacking you are, person that had two decades less of experience

9. 12:52 – 13:23

   Life as experiences + the story you attach determines its quality

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:52

      Exactly. So it's a choice. Like, I love the thought that the way we, the way we believe, that the, the beliefs we hold about the world, Chris, it is a choice, right? We can choose them. Like, something I've been really playing around with recently in my head is this idea that life is a set of experiences, and it's the story we put onto those experiences that ultimately determines the quality of our life.

10. 13:23 – 15:10

    Edith Eger’s lesson: the greatest prison is the one in your mind

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:23

       And what I didn't realize until a few years ago is that I get to choose that story. That narrative, that comes down to me, and that was taught to me on a very, very deep level by an Auschwitz survivor, Edith Eger, who I think I've spoken to you about before.

    2. SPSpeaker13:38

       Mm.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:38

       This incredible lady who, when I spoke to her at, at 93 years old and then again at 97, she was in Auschwitz when she was 16. And she said so many things to me, Chris, which I've shared before, so I won't go through it all again, but in essence, she was able to reframe her whole experience in Auschwitz through the power of her mind. So when she was dancing for the senior prison guards as a 16-year-old young lady after her parents were murdered, she said to me, "I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz, Dr. Chatterjee. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House, dancing with a beautiful dress on in front of a full orchestra." She said, "Whilst I was in Auschwitz, Dr. Chatterjee, I started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. I was free in my mind. They weren't living their life." And the final words, Chris, she said, which probably is one of the main reasons why I feel so content, and Edith, and her teachings are in this book, like they were in my last one. She said, "Rangan, listen, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own minds." And I tell you, Chris, there are some conversations, as you know as a podcast host, where you're not the same person afterwards. That was one of those for me, where pre that conversation and post that conversation, I wasn't the same person. The penny dropped for me in that moment. I was like, "Oh my God, I get it." We're all putting ourselves in mental prison

11. 15:10 – 18:16

    Road rage to resilience: reframing daily stress to prevent coping spirals

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:10

       every day by the way we interact with the world. People don't realize that... Let's make it really, really granular. Let's take it away from Auschwitz to something maybe a bit more relatable for someone. People don't realize that you're driving to work in your car, and someone cuts you up on the road. You have a choice in how you respond. You may not think you have a choice, but you do. If you decide to go, as I used to do, so I'm not judging, but everything has a consequence. If you decide to react like, "Stupid driver. They need to get their eyes checked. They shouldn't be on the road. They're a menace," whatever it might be, and you start screaming at them when they can't even hear you, A, you're not changing the situation, but B, what you have done, and this really relates to the theme of making change that lasts, you have generated emotional stress inside your body. And again, this is again for me is one of the missing pieces in the health conversation online. Emotional stress is not neutral. You have to neutralize it in some way or another. Now, there are a variety of ways in which you can do that. So you could neutralize that emotional stress with a workout in the gym or a walk around the block, or when you get to work, you will neutralize it by going to the vending machine and pulling out a chocolate bar, having another coffee with sugar in, having an extra glass of wine or a beer at lunch, whatever it might be. Those behaviors are there to neutralize the emotional stress that you generated by the way you interacted with that moment. You can also, and it's not that difficult, it just takes a bit of practice, you can also choose in that moment to not interact like that and go, "Wow, I can just let that go." Like I said before about regrets, I choose to believe, it's a choice, that I've always done the best that I could with the information that was available to me and where I was in my life at that time. I also choose to believe that about other people. So therefore, I've trained myself now. It took me a few months and years. Now I do it in the moment as default, but it, it... I had to consciously do it initially, where it's like, "Oh, what's going on with that other person? What, what might be going on with that other person? Oh, well, maybe it's a dad whose daughter was sick last night, and they were up f- all night, and now they're rushing to work. Maybe it's a mother who's been late for work three times in the past two weeks, and she's worried she's gonna lose her job if she's late again." The truth of the situation, Chris, for your wellbeing and your ability to make changes, doesn't actually matter. It's the way you frame the situation because in that moment then, you're not generating the emotional stress. You're feeling internally calm, and therefore you have less of a need to engage in these unhelpful behaviors that were only there to neutralize the stress that you generated by the way you responded

    2. SPSpeaker18:06

       How do you ensure that you're not just telling yourself a pleasant just-so story? Because it sounds all well and good if something bad happens and I say, "That didn't bother me," and yet my heart rate's at 110

12. 18:16 – 20:20

    Solitude as the daily practice that keeps you honest

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:16

       Yeah. Well, that's a good point. So-When I ta- spoke before about interoception and the importance of trusting ourselves, one thing I didn't say, which I write about in that chapter right at the end, is I say, listen, I believe that although most of us are different and we've got unique lives and we need slightly different approaches, I believe that the most important daily practice that any one of us can do in the 21st century is a daily practice of solitude. And when I say solitude, I'm simply talking about time with yourself. Like, if you get up and the first thing you do is start consuming from the outside, whether it's news, whether it's social media, even if it's good quality information, you've lost an opportunity to listen to yourself, right? Our body is always sending us signals, and in this world of content and information, I think many of us are never getting that time to listen to ourselves. So the only way you get to know if you're telling yourself a nice story and, and kidding yourself is by sitting with yourself every day, only for five or 10 minutes if that's all you've got. But that could be, it could be meditation, it could be breathwork, it could be some yoga moves. It could literally be having a cup of coffee and not also scrolling Instagram and email at the same time. It could be going to the toilet without taking a smartphone with you, something that many people find-

    2. SPSpeaker19:48

       Revolutionary

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:50

       ... Seriously, but it is. The truth is, Chris, it really is to people because these little micro moments where you allowed your own thoughts to come up are being eroded out of life. So I'm not putting all the blame on smartphones, right? Ultimately, it's just a tool. It's our relationship with the tool that determines the impact they have on us. But if you practice sitting with yourself, doesn't have to be in the morning. I happen to think the morning's the best time for most people. You will start to know when your heart rate's going up. You will start to know when you're telling

13. 20:20 – 23:48

    Breath-hold training: practicing mental control under primal stress

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:20

       yourself fibs. I mean, one thing I do every morning, Chris, um... Well, there's a couple of things I do. One of the things I do is a breath hold work meditation practice that I learnt from... Do you know the MoveNat founder, Iwan Lacoe?

    2. SPSpeaker20:33

       No.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:34

       Natural movement guy. He's been promoting natural movement for years. About two years ago, I did his new breathwork course online, and it was twice a week for four weeks, and it was probably one of the life- most life-changing practices I've done for me personally. And I remember 'cause I was on a book tour as it happened at the time. I'd just arrived in Stockholm, and I got to my hotel room. I was running a bit late for the course, and I got there, and it was online. And the first thing he asked us, and there was maybe about 12 of us on this Zoom together. He said, "All right. Well, everyone's to, like, take a full breath in, as much as you can, and then time how long you can hold it for." And I did about 60 seconds, something like that. Okay, that was your benchmark. Just to be really clear, this is nothing like, uh, Wim Hof and the hyperventilation before, and there's nothing like that. It's purely take a breath and hold. There's nothing to prepare your body for. Within four weeks, Chris, I went from one minute to four minutes and 20 seconds, and it's n- it's not like the Wim Hof, where you hyperventilate to blow off carbon dioxide first, which allows you to hold your breath for longer. In fact, Iwan would say that's akin to doing cold immersion with a wetsuit on. That's his words, not mine. But it was really powerful, Chris. I'll tell you why it was so powerful. Because I learnt that it was all to do with your mind. My CO2, carbon dioxide tolerance, did not change that much in four weeks to go from one minute to four minutes and 20 seconds. My physiology did not change that quickly. What that course taught me is that when you think you need to breathe, so you're lying there in silence and your body is screaming for you to breathe, if you can quieten your mind, if you can quieten the thoughts, which you can do, you can go for another minute. All of those thoughts, all of those things that are going around your mind, any tension you have in your body, it's bleeding energy.

    4. SPSpeaker22:41

       I think that that's the way that, um, divers-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:44

       Yeah

    6. SPSpeaker22:45

       ... uh, free divers often pass out underwater. It's, they don't gasp and breathe air in. They just are going and going and going and then lights out.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:53

       Uh, yeah. So again, I wasn't doing this near water. He wasn't proposing anyone was doing it near water. But why I shared that is because this is a practice that I do each morning, right? It's not about the breath hold. It's about knowing when your body is literally screaming for you to take a breath, which is probably one of the most primal things your body can say to you, in that moment, I've learnt I still got control over my mind, and I can go longer, which basically means most things in life become quite trivial in comparison. If you enjoyed that short clip, I think you are really going to enjoy the full conversation, which you can check out here. [outro music]

Episode duration: 23:48