3 Mistakes That Guarantee You'll Die Filled with Regret

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:00

So here's the thing, the majority of people live in mediocrity and die with regret. I've studied psychology for over 16 years. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and executive coach, and I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of people all over the world to build a more values-aligned life and business. And these are the three biggest mistakes that I consistently see people do that traps them in mediocrity and then leads to them getting to their deathbed and looking back on their life filled with regret. Let's get started. So the first one is waiting for some day, right?

Someday I'll travel, someday I'll start that business, someday I'll become a writer, right? Someday, someday, someday. Well, one day you'll be out of some days. So for example, one of my friends, was an attorney and he kept waiting for some day. He really wanted to be a writer, but he's like, well, someday I'll write a book. But for now, I'm just gonna kind of grind it out in this job that I don't actually enjoy. I'm not passionate about it. But eventually he did decide to quit his job and start writing a book.

And when he did that, he absolutely loved every second of it. His family was excited. The book had a ton of potential to legitimately change a lot of people's lives. Then one day he went to the doctor for a routine checkup and they ended up diagnosing him with stage four pancreatic cancer. Two weeks later, he was gone. But right before he died, his family put up like a quick GoFundMe on his Facebook page, which has become a digital tombstone. And here's what it said,

but time is short. It's heartbreaking, but he has run out of time and this dream remains unfulfilled. He kept waiting for some day until one day he was out of some days. And this is true for so many of us, right? We think, I've got plenty of time. You fucking don't, right? Like you get one life, then you die. What the fuck are you gonna do with your time while you have it? So waiting for some day is one of the biggest things that traps people in mediocrity. And then they get to the end of their life,

and then they just look back and regret all the things they wish they would have done, but didn't because they were too busy waiting for some day. Stop putting your dreams on hold for some day. Second thing is letting fear stop them, right? I've talked about this before. I'll link some videos about what I call the Four Horsemen of Fear, which are the four most common limiting beliefs that tend to hold people back from doing more meaningful purpose-driven work that fulfills them. But in a nutshell,

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 02:23

The four horsemen are fear of failure, right? When you're so afraid of, well, what if this doesn't work out? What if I'm not smart enough? Well, if you're so afraid of failure, you end up never even trying in the first place. The second horseman is fear of ridicule. And this is where you're so afraid of getting judged by other people, right? What will people think or say if I do this, that we end up staying small and never taking chances in the first place. The third horseman is fear of uncertainty. And this is basically when we're at a fork in the road.

and we're so afraid of making the wrong decision, we end up making no decision at all. This typically turns into analysis paralysis, right, where we go down endless YouTube rabbit holes to find all the, you know, the perfect answer. We wait until we feel ready, quote unquote, to actually do something, and we end up doing nothing. And the fourth one is fear of success. And this will make kind of trip you up, because you may be like, well, Corey, why would I be afraid to achieve the thing I claim to want? And honestly, for a lot of people, success represents crossing a threshold.

Right, if you've never achieved major success, however you define it, success is, there's a before version of success of you and an after success version of you. Well, if you've never achieved major success, this post-success version of you seems foreign, seems alien, and we reflexively turn away from things we don't understand. A lot of people, a lot of the entrepreneurs I coach and I work with, I tend to hear things like, well, what if I lose my ambition if I succeed?

or I've been the underdog my entire life, what happens if I become the incumbent? Maybe that means I lose my superpower. And then other people just deeply believe that they're unworthy of success. So if you're struggling with fears like this, you tend to typically struggle with things like procrastination, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, shiny object syndrome, all this other shit, because these behaviors help you avoid facing the thing you're afraid of. Right, like if I procrastinate, procrastination isn't actually my problem. The reason I'm procrastinating is because I'm fucking afraid. I'm afraid of failure.

So the longer I kick that can down the road, the longer I get to avoid risking potential failure. This is why a lot of productivity advice and shit doesn't work. Because it'll teach you like the 15 fucking matrices and hacks and cheats and whatever the fuck to beat procrastination. And most of the time, procrastination isn't your problem. Fear is.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:34

There's even a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. And she talks about how one of the reasons, one of the biggest things that people regret is that they didn't live a life true to themselves. And this is typically because they let fear and bullshit stop them from being true to themselves and living the life they know they are meant to live, which traps them in mediocrity and causes them to get to the end of their life filled with fucking regret. And the third biggest mistake I consistently see people make that traps them in mediocrity,

is they never actually clarify their values. And this for me, like when I coach people, when I coach entrepreneurs, creators, leaders, things like this, this is usually the first place we start, is clarifying their values. Because a life well lived is a life that is aligned with your core value. Because if you want to build a fulfilling life, if you want to build a purpose driven business, things like this, they have to be rooted in your core value, or at least your top two to three values.

because a life well lived is a values aligned life. The issue is, if you don't clarify what your values are, what you fundamentally give a shit about and fundamentally what a life well lived must be built in alignment with, trying to succeed without understanding your values isn't just trying to hit a moving target. It's trying to hit a moving target in the dark. Because not only is the thing you're trying to achieve moving, because you haven't defined it, you don't even know what it is.

You don't even know what success looks like. You don't even know what reaching your potential looks like. You don't even know what fulfillment looks like, because you haven't clarified your values or your core value. Without this, you have no guidance. You have no direction, no north star. So then what do you do? You chase what other people tell you you should chase, right? You get trapped on this hedonic treadmill of chasing more and more and more, all this superficial bullshit, and maybe you do achieve success on paper, but you're fucking miserable with your life, because you are not.

fulfilled. You do not have a lot of meaning in your life. I call this the path of lucrative misery. It's when you chase material things to the exclusion of meaning and you end up miserable. But this doesn't mean you can't make money doing meaningful work, right? Like you can be incredibly fulfilled and incredibly materially successful as well. These are not mutually exclusive, but you have to have clarity on what this life you're trying to achieve, what this business you're trying to build,

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 07:00

actually looks like and why it matters, why it is worth doing. So I could go on and on about other mistakes people make, but I just wanted to drop this video real quick to give you a primer on some of these because I don't see nearly enough people talking about them. And I want you to do more meaningful purpose-driven work that fulfills you. I want you to succeed on your terms. But before you can succeed, you have to avoid the mistakes that trap you in mediocrity. And these are the three biggest ones I consistently see.

So let me know what you think, leave a comment below, like, subscribe, all that jazz. And if you want to work together, I do offer coaching, I would love to help you build a more values aligned life and business. So you can go to my website, coreywilkspsyd.com. For more information, I'll drop a link below that as well. Until next time, take it easy.