What do you fear more; rejection or regret?

During the last Wellness Group someone brought up being afraid of rejection. Now rejection can occur in a variety of situations; at work, socially, relationships or a loan. This got me YouTubing clips on rejection and ways to overcome it. I found a good one from Matthew Hussey who’s a relationship coach. Here’s the clip where he’s talking about rejection and how to handle it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8JopEnIuEQ A question that stood out was: “What are you more fearful of; getting rejected again or living your life in a cave? Isn’t it worse if you picture your life cowering and being afraid? Being this person who can’t go and talk to people or can’t put themselves out there, or give people compliments in case she doesn’t get one back?” This made rejection seem like a trivial thing compared to reaching a point in your life where you regretted choices you didn’t make. There’s no option for you to go back and change anything. You don’t have enough time left, health or money to make those choices now. As I shut down my computer I was left feeling like I wanted to go out there and do all these fun, exciting things. I looked around, realised I was in Port Sorell and it was about 7pm on a Sunday night. I thought “how do I do this?” Well first I need to decide what “this” is. What’s my intention? My intention is to live a life where I’m having fun, relaxed, laughing. I have hobbies that help me grow, learn and have fun. I’m surrounded by interesting people. I have a purpose. I’m the natural and authentic me. I’m healthy. I’m in an environment that supports all this. Hmmm…I'm kinda doing all that now. In the past I've had a problem that I've needed to work out and get through. Things are cruising along at the moment, touch wood, but I know there’s something I need to refine. There’s something missing. Something I need more of. Argh, this feeling is like the feeling I got when I was doing my 10,000 piece jigsaw. I really wanted to find a particular piece but couldn’t. I knew the shape and rough colours of the piece but didn't know exactly what it looked like. I'd never seen it before and it was jumbled up with 9,000 other pieces. So what I did was work on another part of the jigsaw but be on the look out for the piece I wanted to find. It would have been time consuming to go through all the other pieces to find it. I knew it was there and I'd eventually find it. But what do I do with this feeling I’ve got now? This feeling that there’s something I need to be doing but don’t know what it is. Like with my puzzle, I need a strategy. I know. I'll imagine the future me 10 years from now. I’ll ask her “what advice would you give the younger 33-year-old you?” Answer: get out there and meet more people. Focus on where your energy is going. Make it go to the things that leave you happy, laughing and smiling. Have a clear intention with everything you do. This will bring new people into your life and leave you knowing that you made the most of each moment in time. Right. Thanks for that. Perfect, now I’ve got action steps. First action step. Tomorrow I will resign from my position as Cave Guide with Parks and Wildlife Service. I had taken leave without pay because I wanted job security. Building a business was totally new to me. It had taken me five years to get a permanent position with the Government. I didn’t want to resign straight away just because my business was going well. Um, hang on, hang on. What did I just say about my business? "It’s was going well." So that’s job security right? What? When did that happen? How did I miss that? Simple: The things I was imagining were different from my reality. I was imaging and telling myself those old stories of when I started my business. “It’s a lot of work." "There’s so much I need to learn about business." "I need to focus my energy and effort on this.” Those beliefs were true back then but now I had different evidence which was showing me that my reality had shifted. It was time to shift beliefs to be in line with reality. This is exciting. For you: What are you imagining? What is the evidence telling you about your reality? What do you choose to belief now?