We all like to think that we live our lives free of any regrets. However, it’s perfectly fine to do something that you later regret: it means you’re human and that you’re growing up. However, while we should always learn from our mistakes, we should also try to learn from other people’s mistakes, and not make our own in the first place. So, to help you live life with fewer regrets, here are some things you probably don’t want to do:

Damage Your Hair

We really do take our hair for granted. Imagine waking up one day without it – it would completely change your appearance. And yet we mistreat our hair daily and damage it permanently. Let’s start with the hairs on our head. We all want to have beautiful, unique hairstyles, but over-bleaching, straightening and curling are really not doing you any favors. They damage the hair so much that no matter how many times you say, “It’ll just grow out new and strong,” your hair will actually fall out and won’t grow back at all, leaving you with thin hair that has practically no volume. And if we’re talking about eyebrows, over-plucking them will lead to them eventually disappearing, and when you one day decide you don’t have the time to draw them in – you’ll regret that decision. Also shaving the hair on your body constantly can make it grow in and become much thicker, so be careful with your grooming.

Have an Unhealthy Lifestyle

We all know in the back of our mind that we’re supposed to exercise a lot, eat healthy and be mindful. However, we usually get it wrong at “why?”. We are so obsessed with looking a certain way and taking the smoothie bowl Instagram photos, that we are forgetting that our bodies don’t come with a backup. We have to take care of the one we have, or we will end up unable to live our lives to the fullest after our bodies start to show all the accumulated consequences of our bad choices. It takes a very long time to get your body back from a very unhealthy point, reverse insulin resistance and build up strength and stamina, and change your habits. So start now – remember that you are living a healthy lifestyle now so that you can continue being healthy in the future, because reversing your choices later  is a lot harder than starting now and doing it while you’re young.

Spend Energy on Toxic People

Letting go of friends that we’ve known for a long time is hard. We get comfortable with a certain group of people and we don’t want to let it go, even if we know it’s not the healthiest environment for us. The fact is, we are all growing and changing and we have to accept that sometimes the people we were close with in college just aren’t the right crowd for us when we grow up. Look around you, identify the people that are holding you back and making you feel bad and stop investing your energy in them. Making new friends is hard, but sometimes you’ve gotta do it.

Be on Every Diet Ever

Diets don’t work. Plain and simple, if you are trying to “stick to the regime” for a month to lose an arbitrary amount of weight, it won’t work. It will lead to a cycle of yo-yo dieting: losing a bunch of weight and then gaining back every single ounce plus some more. Rinse and repeat until you’re in your late 50s and you’ve completely lost any sort of normal relationship with food. So just don’t do it! The only diet you should be doing is listening to your body. Try to eat intuitively and if you do need a regime to maintain a certain weight, make sure it’s in ways that you can keep up for the rest of your life. Remember: don’t set short-term goals. Instead, change the lifestyle.

Bad Habits

We all have some habits that we’d rather break, but getting rid of a habit is hard. It’s one of the hardest things to do actually. If you are a smoker, you bite your nails or sleep too little, in about 20 years you will certainly regret ever starting those habits and not nipping them in the bud. The easiest way to get rid of a bad habit? Don’t start it.

So make sure you make the right choices today to have a better life with fewer regrets tomorrow.

HUGE thank you to Brigitte from High Style Life for this writing this great guest post! 

XXOO Sunny