Try using hindsight to make changes in your life

Hindsight comes cheap. That's one of those common sense observations I used to hear in my youth.

Common sense or not, after a few decades of living, I don't agree anymore. In fact, I think hindsight is both necessary and can be expensive in many ways.

We all have times when we realize too late that we have done one thing or the other that we wish we hadn't done. We get through putting the lawn mower back together only to realize that we just left out the exact same piece we left out six months ago.

Or we have a bad day at work and then yell at the kids. Only after they've gone to bed do we realize that our yelling simply made things worse for everybody, including us.

Or we conclude after the divorce that our fear of being intimate led to the problems in our marriage that destroyed the intimacy we truly sought.

I guess most of us are continually looking back and wishing we'd done things differently. So we are probably also getting frustrated with ourselves for always figuring this out too late to change the outcomes.

Actually, rather than getting frustrated, I think we should value such hindsight. Used correctly, it can be an important first step in changing our counterproductive behavior.

Hindsight, understanding the past more clearly, can be used to develop insight into the present. With insight, we more clearly understand who we are now, why we are doing what we are doing and what effect our actions have in our lives today.

With such an understanding, we can begin to target those new behaviors that we would like to develop, whether it is thinking before we jump into a project, speaking gently to our children or risking more intimacy in present and future relationships.

Insight can likewise lead to what I call "midsight." In the middle of doing something we would regret later, we become aware of what we are doing and try to change our behavior before it's too late.

For example, we recognize in our second marriage some of the same danger signals we ignored in our first marriage and get some counseling before things get out of control.

Though such midsight can be frustrating at times, it too is a necessary step toward the changes in our behavior we seek to make. For midsight usually leads to foresight and realizing before the fact what it is we'd rather not do.

With foresight we plan ahead to change our counterproductive behavior. We think through our lawn mower repair job before we start so we don't make the same mistake again. We recognize on the drive home from work that we are uptight and we work on relaxing so that we will have more patience when we get home. We attend a marriage enrichment course with our new spouse to start building a sound foundation of intimacy.

Hindsight, insight, midsight, and foresight are four necessary steps to changing those parts of our behavior harmful to ourselves and those around us. And just being aware of these steps can make such change easier.

Yet changing also takes hard work and patience. Moving through the four steps I've suggested requires a good deal of determined, conscious struggling. As most of our problematic behaviors have become habits with long histories, we may struggle for months or years to develop the foresight to change.

I guess it's the old "good news -- bad news" scenario. The good news is that we can take charge and change many of our destructive behaviors. The bad news is that it won't be easy.

When you next find yourself regretting the mess you've just made, use your hindsight as the first step toward change. And if such change seems beyond your own resources, get some professional help to get you over the rough spots.