Compounding Daily
Do you feel stuck? Uninspired? Stagnant? The Compounding Daily podcast hosted by Miguel Sanchez, aims to spark curiosity and drive. Each episode gives you deep insights on how to cultivate healthy habits, practice discipline, change your perspective of life, and restructure your mindset in a way that promotes small changes in your daily life that will compound to help you earn that 1% needed everyday to reach your goals, whether they be physical, mental, or both.
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Compounding Daily
EP135- The recipe for a life filled with Regret
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What separates a life of fulfillment from one haunted by regret?
It all comes down to the gap between knowing and doing.
In this deeply reflective episode, I share what I call “the recipe for a life filled with regret”—the devastating formula: “I could have, I should have, but I didn’t… and now it’s too late.” This pattern has trapped countless people, including myself for many years, in cycles of dissatisfaction and missed opportunities.
We often recognize our dissatisfaction with aspects of life—our physical health, financial situation, career trajectory, or relationships—and admit we could take action. Yet the critical breaking point lies in the gap between recognizing what we should do and actually doing it. That hesitation compounds over time, potentially creating a future self burdened with regret.
By acknowledging that our challenges aren’t unique or special—and recognizing that others have overcome far worse—we eliminate the justifications for inaction. The truth remains: the only constant in life is change. We can either proactively shape that change through intentional choices, or passively allow circumstances to force change upon us.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to realize what could have been. Your future self—the one who will either thank you or regret your choices—is watching. What small step will you take today to avoid tomorrow’s regret?
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Miguel:@m_sanchezvillafane
Email: Compoundingdailypodcast@gmail.com
Hello, hello and welcome back everybody to Compounding Daily. I'm your host, miguel Sanchez, and welcome back to another episode. I can't believe it. We are nearing the 150th episode mark as we sit here in episode 135. And, as always, I want to begin every episode with expressing gratitude. There is nothing that I value more in my own personal life than the time I spend and to know that you are choosing to spend some time listening to me, having this conversation with me, even though we're not speaking directly, always assume that I'm speaking not at you, but with you. A lot of the messages that I put out are reminders for me. More than anything, understand that everything that I speak to you about, I'm implementing, I'm experiencing, I'm learning from, I failed by trying, and my goal is to give you my failures in hopes that you don't repeat those mistakes and learn from them, and that is not something that I take for granted. So, all of that to simply say thank you, thank you, thank you for being here, and let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's Monday, the beginning of another week, and you can wake up and add and have this attitude towards it, and I don't want to go through the motions and I'm tired and why do? Why am I not rich yet? And why was I born into a poor family? And why aren't things better for me? And you could just go ahead and ruin the rest of your day, most likely the rest of your week, if you allow those thoughts to be the dominant thoughts of your mind. So all of that, to simply say you have a choice when you wake up yes, even on a Monday morning. And the choice is to be mindful and observant of the conversation that's happening within your mind and not allowing that conversation to root itself into a negative place. You get to observe that conversation and say, okay, that may be my reality. I don't feel up to it, I wish things were better, but unfortunately, life doesn't work on your command. Life is life and you must adapt to it. So now you have a responsibility to change that conversation and make sure that that conversation is one of appreciation, one of gratitude, one that says, despite of who I am and where I am, I know the things that I must do and I will show up with the right attitude to get those things done. And then you show up and you're the happy Monday kind of guy, you're the oh, today's going to be a great day. You're the weirdo around the office or the construction building because for most people, monday is a reminder that they are stepping back into a life that they are not satisfied with. Sit with that and don't allow yourself to be that person. And with that being said, let's get right into it. I have a short episode today. All of my episodes lately have been short. It's just been me solo episodes Haven't really had the urge to bring anybody on.
Speaker 1:I've been enjoying my for lack of better wording my ability to sit down with myself, by myself and have a conversation like this and know that even I gained something from it, because they all, as I said earlier, serve as reminders to me. And today's topic is something that I speak about all of the time, all of the time, and understand something. If it's something that I repeat over and over and over again, it means that I value it. It means that I need to remind myself often of it, because if not reminded, I allow excuses to start appearing, I allow procrastination to go a little longer, I allow an anchor to start weighing me down and if I am not mindful, if I am not reminded on my own, by myself, with myself, with the conversations I have with myself, then what would I be waiting for? I would be waiting for others to speak inspiration into me. I would be waiting for others to nudge me forward and, unfortunately, I spent most of my life waiting for other people and it didn't get me anywhere. So today's message is about regret, regret, regret, regret. If you know me personally, you know that everything that I do the podcast, the bodybuilding, the life as a plumber, bodybuilding the life as a plumber, the mask of a fiance, the mask of a godfather, the mask of a brother, of a son, of a best friend I'm part of a community.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of things, even things that I haven't said out loud, that require my undivided attention. To a lot of people they say, man, you don't seem to have a lot of time, why are you doing so much? And the answer is always the same, and it's always simple I don't want to reach the end of my life filled with regret. And over the last few years, as I've contemplated with that thought in my mind, I've come up with well, I don't want to say I've contemplated with that thought in my mind, I've come up with. Well, I don't want to say I've come up, I've learned right, because everything that I speak about I've learned from other people. I'm not creating things here.
Speaker 1:It's the formula, the recipe for a life filled with regret, and I've spoken about this before, so maybe this isn't new to you, but bear with me. This is the recipe for a life filled with regret, meaning, if you just live like this, I guarantee you, I promise you right, I promise you that you will be at the end of your your life thinking about what could have been filled with regret. And the recipe is very simple. The recipe goes like this I could have, I should have, but I didn't, and now it's too late. Don't set yourself up for failure with that I could have.
Speaker 1:It means that right now, you are in a position where you are clearly showing dissatisfaction and discontent with things in your life, but you know that you have the time and you have the energy. Maybe not all the resources, but you can get started. You could do something. You could do anything that will move you forward, that will give your life progress, that will give you something to aim at, that will challenge you and make more out of you. You could do those things and you know that because you have that conversation with yourself, you say, man, I'm not happy with my physical body, I'm not happy with my financial situation, I'm not happy with my career, I'm not happy with the trajectory in which my life is headed. But I could do something about it. I could wake up with a better attitude. I could surround myself by better people. I could sign up to YT University which is free that means YouTube, by the way and just start learning. That means YouTube, by the way and just start learning about proper nutrition and start eating better. I could be more mindful about the words that I speak into existence, with the understanding that some of it may be poison to other people. I could do all of these things.
Speaker 1:And now it leads to the middle. You could. And you know, deep down, intuition's nagging at you. That internal voice is screaming at you. The best version of yourself is within you, squirming, and it's saying well, we know we could, so we should, we should, we should do this. And that's where most people fell. That's where I felt for most of my life. I knew that I could. I always knew that I could. And that's not an egotistic like oh yeah, I could do anything. It's more of a like.
Speaker 1:I caught myself wasting so much time that I knew I could, if I wanted to put my efforts towards a better destination. I knew that I could. And now my problem always began with like, oh, I really should, I should go to the gym, I should have that conversation, I should ask for a raise, I should read the books, I should, I should, I should. And now I'm sitting there battling with myself, arguing with myself, literally internally, creating conflict about the things that I know I could do and I should do, and the problem is just getting started. For me, anyways, right, for me, it was always that Just getting started. And guess what? For most of my life, I knew that I could, I knew that I should and I didn't and I didn't. And that didn't lead me from a conversation of man I could do so much more. And here I am now. It always led to man. I knew that I could have and I didn't.
Speaker 1:How many New Year's resolutions did I need to create for myself? How many vision boards did I have to make, with different pictures all saying the same thing this is what you want, you could get this. It's not going to be easy, but you should go after it. Why should? Why should you? Well, because who you are now is somebody who you are not satisfied with, is somebody that you are not content with, and you don't want to remain as this version of yourself for the rest of your life. That's why you should. And when you understand that the only constant in life is change, you are not put in a position of accountability, because change is coming, and neither you project the kind of change that you want to see from yourself out into the world or you allow the world to force change upon you by circumstances. But without doubt, change is coming. So what will you do? And I highly suggest everything that you could do, everything that you should do, so you don't get to that point of.
Speaker 1:But I didn't do it right, because let me paint for you a picture, right? This picture is a picture of misery, sadness, sorrow, maybe internal emotional suffering, and I've repainted this picture in my mind so many times, and not in a depressing way, I promise you I'm not sad, but the picture looks a little like this. I'm older, I'm in my 60s, I've done my time and I can now retire, and I envision an unhealthy body. I see a lot of medical appointments, a lot of appointments with the doctors, for them to tell me, man, you really should have, you really should have. And I'm just saying they're like I know I could have, I know I could have. And the doctor's like, yeah, but you didn't. So here we are. Yeah, but you didn't. So here we are.
Speaker 1:You know, I see my relationship with my wife not feeling fulfilled, not feeling what's the word that I'm looking for, not feeling filled with love. I see that. I see that. I see that and I see that I could have put more effort into the relationship. I should have been a better version of myself for my wife, but I didn't. And now my marriage is suffering from it. I see my children building resentment towards me because dad wasn't the best version of himself, because dad said he had all these dreams and ambitions and he was going to do this for the family and he could have and he should have, but he didn't. And now here I am, at old age, retired, with nothing but time left Right. I'm sure economically speaking, financially speaking, excuse me I'll probably be in a better position. I would hope so, but now I have all this money, all this time, failing relationships filled with regret, lacking in physical energy. I never took care of my vessel. I never took care of my family as I properly should have, not just being there physically, but mentally, spiritually, socially, leading by example. A lot of like do as I say, not as I do, because even dad knows there's things that need to be done.
Speaker 1:Think about that picture and now go and find it in person. And what I mean by that is that picture that I just painted is a picture that I see. I promise you on everything I love. I promise you. It's a picture that I see manifested into physical reality every single week. And I see it in the late version, actual, old man, filled with regret. And I see the younger version of it, the person making wrong decisions, knowing that they could be making better decisions, that they should be making decisions better, but instead they don't, and they'll continue to dig their hole deeper and deeper and deeper. And in my head I'm just screaming Stop, stop, stop. You're going to get to the end of this gift called life with nothing except all the things that you wish you did different and now you are filled with regret. Don't fall for that. That is a recipe for a life filled with regret. I could have, I should have, and I didn't.
Speaker 1:I understand something when you are as hard on yourself as I am with myself, anything, anything that you use to justify your lack of effort, to justify why you are now at the end of your life filled with regret, is an excuse. It's an excuse. It's an excuse, right? The reason I'm so hard on myself like that is because I know that the suffering that I'm going through, somebody else has gone through worse.
Speaker 1:I know that I'm not the only one going through pain. I'm not the only one losing loved ones. I'm not the only one in failing relationships. I'm not the only one who's lost a job. I'm not the only one who has insecurities and fears and doubts about life. And because I know I'm not the only one, my story isn't special and I know people personally and through my own homework, that have gone through 10 times, even a hundred times, worse of a life than me so far and they've accomplished more, and that's not a comparison thing. But I see that as a sign of hope, I see that as a wow.
Speaker 1:If they did that, what is my excuse when my life is nowhere near as hard as that? What am I doing? What am I? Full of excuses and that's how I talk to myself. Why? Because I don't want to get to the end of my life and have that picture become a reality, that picture that I just painted so beautifully for you earlier. I don't want to be in a hospital bed at the end of my life thinking about man. I wish I had more time, because I just didn't get to live I should have. I could have man, I could have done so many other things, and instead I settled. I remained average, I settled in mediocrity. I lived a sedimentary lifestyle. I chose to not be active and put effort towards my life. And now, as I can't physically put effort back towards life, I sit here with one thing regret. Don't fall for that. Think about it and together let's get better. Thank you for being here and until next time.
