Other times, there’s this unsettling feeling of “haven’t I been here before?” This is deja-vu regret. Sometimes we do something we regret and it’s a one and done. You get to decide if you allow mistakes and missteps, or if perfection is the only option. As a human being trying to figure life out, the journey is going to have bumps and detours as well as joys and successes. We cannot change what happened but we can release regret’s negative grip by forgiving ourselves.Ī sense of peace can come from acknowledging that you are on a journey. There is a part of us that cannot move forward because we have not resolved this issue. Suspend the judgment and get curious about what was going on.įind a way to make your peace with regretĪs long as we’re still holding onto regret, we are anchored in the past. Consider what factors influenced you and people who might have directly or indirectly impacted your decision – not to blame anyone, but to understand the bigger picture.Įven if you did something that was a big mistake, or wrong, or not what you would ever do again, you deserve to take your side and advocate for yourself. You had your reasons for doing what you did. When you revisit your own experience, instead of blaming yourself, pretend you are your own defense and make a case for yourself. In any trial, there are always two sides presented. Make a case for yourself – come to your defense Put yourself back in those shoes and try to remember, with compassion, what it was like for you. Try to first accept that you had your reasons for doing what you did at that time. The truth is, if you could have acted differently, you would have. We can never go back in time AND recreate an experience and how it affected us internally. You are a biased judge as you are privy to information and knowledge that you didn’t have then. You are not in that specific setting, you are not feeling the same feelings, and you have the wisdom of hindsight. When you look back, whether it’s a month, a year, or a decade ago, realize you aren’t the same person now. What follows is a process you can use to address regret and let it actually help you. I’ve never had a pearl necklace, but it sounds a lot better to me than the choke collar of regret.įor regret to be our teacher, we need to put on the detective’s cap and look back at whatever we’re regretting with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment and blame. If we let regret be our teacher, the pain of regret can be turned into pearls of wisdom that will help us move forward with the self-knowledge that has the power to change our future for the better. Torment is feeling bad about something we can’t change. Unlike those old cassette tapes, this tape never wears out. The tape keeps playing and there’s no way to rewrite the script or feel anything else besides bad. We might even see ourselves in prison stripes. When we look back to the past, it is through a tiny peephole that shows us only a narrow, biased perspective. (Regret can also be about not doing something, not taking action, letting too much time go by.) Why did you do that? What’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you do x, y, z? You’re a loser. When regret is our tormentor, it plays a tape in our head that goes something like this: Ouch.ĭepending on how we let regret affect us, it will either torment or teach us. Maybe we lost a chance with the love of our life, or we spent 20 years in a profession we never chose. Then there’s the regret that feels like it burns a hole in our soul. This kind of regret we can sleep off and it barely moves the needle on the regret-o-meter. There’s the regret we feel when we eat a whole bag of potato chips. It could likely outlast Superglue in a competition. It will live on forever inside of us unless we do something about it. Today I’m on a mission to help you with a process for dealing with regret that shifts it from being a tormentor to a teacher.īecause unfortunately there’s no expiration date on regret. I’m trying to learn from past regret to avoid some “deja-vu regret” in my own life. Some of you, I know, are struggling with regret related to your career. I’ve been thinking a lot about regret lately.
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