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# 9/29/28 Daily Video: Using Regret to Avoid Future Regret
- URL: https://thisreidwrites.com/todays-video-using-regret-to-avoid-future-regret/
- Published: 2026-09-27T22:14:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T00:18:19.000Z
- Description: Creative, regret is not a chain holding you back. It's a roadmap.
- Author: Ruthanne Reid, Author
- Tags: daily video, pep-talks for creatives, regret

I’m really excited about this video, creatives, because I get to teach one of THE most important tools in my toolbox: 

The art of using regret to avoid future regret. Creative, regret is not a chain holding you back. It’s a roadmap.

🎥

**I make pep-talk videos for struggling creatives every single day. If you want to be reminded that you are not alone, follow me below:* 

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## ROUGH TRANSCRIPT

Ooh, creatives, I've got a really good challenge for you today.

Welcome back, creatives. Ruthanne Reid here, author and stroke survivor to help you get out of block and into a daily habit of creation. Culturally, we are encouraged to grieve the opportunities that we missed. We didn't go to school for the thing that we wanted. We didn't stay as physically fit as we wanted. We didn't learn, study, practice, travel, whatever it is. We didn't do the things that we wanted when we were younger, and we carry that regret now, and we go, "If only..." even though there's no way to go back in time and fix it.

Well, there's another way to view this that's actually a lot more positive that will help you move forward instead of just beating yourself up. Instead of looking back and thinking, if only I had done x, look at your life now, as if you are far in the future, and go, what would I have done at that age, if I'd really been thinking clearly?

What creative things are you going to do differently now if you actually use that regret and use it to steer you? I don't mean use it as in beat yourself up. Don't, don't do that. It does not help you to do that. If you associate negative consequences with your art. You are less likely to try your art, because it hurts. Do not dwell in misery of the past in just kicking yourself because you didn't do something that you may or may not have even known you needed to do that's done. It's over. You can't go back, but you can change what you're doing now.

If I sound excited, it's because I'm excited. It's because instead of something that you have to carry around like a ball and chain that just weighs you down, it's just regret, It's just, "Ooh, it's a failure of character," however you're viewing it, you can view it as a roadmap.

You didn't study musical harmony when you were younger, you wish you had, it makes it harder to compose music now... Okay. So study it now. You never really understood how to draw hands, you just didn't really study it, you know you were supposed to, but it was hard work, you didn't do it, now it's getting in the way of what you want to do... So study hands now.

Use your regret to avoid future regret. It's like magic. You can do this. Creative, your art is worth it, and you are worth it. You do not deserve to live in regret. That doesn't help you create. What does is if you try to move in such a way that you don't have that regret about this time later. Use your regret to avoid future regret.

**Sit down with me, creative, and together, let's make something new.**