“If I could go back…”: How to Overcome Regret Once and For All
Regret is one of the most common emotions that human beings experience, and yet it’s one of those things that we almost never talk about or admit to, even to ourselves. Bestselling author and researcher Daniel Pink has studied and written about regret extensively, and the data he’s collected shows that nearly everyone with a human brain has experienced the emotion of regret (his work is fascinating and worth a deeper dive if you’re interested!). In other words, if you feel regret about anything (and the odds are, you do) you are not alone.
We all know what regret means, but let’s look at a few examples of how and where it can show up for us, because regret is one of those emotions that though we all feel, we don’t like to share…which is ridiculous since we all can say, “yep, been there!” if we’re being honest. So for the sake of a collective coming clean, here are some not-so-uncommon examples of what regret can look like (said the life coach who has heard more than a few of these before…):
Cheating on a partner 20 years ago
Losing your shit at another driver while your kids were in the car 20 minutes ago
Waking up with a hangover and wishing you never said yes to those drinks last night
Turning down a job and then watching the company go public
Not buying the house
Buying the house
Ending that relationship
Getting involved in another relationship too soon to avoid the regret of ending that other one….
Getting into credit card debt, again
Paying off debt and not having the cash on hand now
Spending last night bingeing Succession so you’re late to work this morning
Not spending enough time with people while they’re with you
Not getting yourself into therapy sooner
Scrolling IG instead of getting some decent sleep last night
You see the point. Regret comes in all shapes and sizes and it’s hard to go through the world as a human and not experience it one way or another. Some regrets are fairly easy to move past. Others however….
Regret itself isn’t the problem. It’s an emotion, and no emotion itself is an issue. It’s the actions we take as a result of trying to avoid or resist those emotions where we tend to get ourselves into trouble.
But regret is one of those emotions that we have a collective asterisk in front of; like its cousins “shame” and “guilt”, we seem to share a belief that accepting, sitting with, or even acknowledging our regret is something we won’t do. “I don’t have regrets” is a mantra even in the self-help space; we’re taught instead to not beat ourselves up, look at regrets as lessons learned, and move forward.
No point in wallowing in something you can’t change, right?
We rationalize our regret by saying things like, “But if that hadn’t happened/if I hadn’t done that/if I had done that, I wouldn’t have XYZ that I love so much now...” We cling to the story that it was meant to happen, despite the regret we’re still carrying around with us every day.
Or we pull out my old favorite, “Everything happens for a reason,” as a means to explain away the thing that we did (or didn’t) do and push forward….
The problem is, regret doesn’t play like that. Regret doesn’t just go away because you’re telling yourself a mantra you only half believe about the universe redirecting you or there being some secret meaning to it all that’s yet to be revealed. Regret is like gum on your shoe. It’s sticky and annoying and a little bit gross. And it won’t go away by you ignoring it or telling yourself that it’s there for a reason.
So what do we do with regret? Just learn to live with it? Or accept that we’re always going to feel a little bit gross for that sicky-gum-thing we did (or didn’t) do on our past?
Um, no.
There is, in fact, a way to move past your regrets and put them back in the past, where they came from and where they belong. How? By doing the thing you don’t want to do: face it, accept it, let it be there, and then learn to move forward from it.
How does that work? Let’s take a closer look at the 7 Steps for Overcoming Regret:
STEP 1: See regret for what it really is: a human emotion that over 80% of us report experiencing. Regret is not some scarlet letter that only you need to walk around the village wearing. Everyone, or nearly everyone, experiences regret.
STEP 2: Understand that as humans, we have reasons for the things we do (even if the reasons are shit, especially in hindsight). Remind yourself that the thing you regret is something you did (or didn’t do) is something you had a reason for. You did what made sense in the moment.
STEP 3: Accept your regret. This is the one people really hate. But when you resist or avoid something it doesn’t mean it goes away. Just like that nagging pain in your tooth or noise the car is making, it won’t get better by pretending its not happening. Accept that it’s there. It doesn’t have to be complicated. “Yes I did/didn’t do that thing, and I regret that” is a great place to start. Say it. Say it again. And again. Notice that the more you think that thought, the less it stings over time.
STEP 4: Process the emotion that comes up. Regret is an emotion that will create a vibration in your body (like they all do), and it wont stop vibrating until you deal with it. Annoying, I know, but I don’t make the rules, people. What does this mean then? It means you need to process your emotion before you can move forward, otherwise like a gong you strike once that vibration will just go on and on….We work on processing emotions in coaching, but in short what it means is you notice the feeling, describe it, sit with it, and allow the feeling to move through your body. I know it sounds woo-woo and weird but it’s what needs to happen to get that gross gum unstuck and off your metaphorical shoe.
STEP 5: Forgive yourself. This is the big one, but if you jump to it without doing 1 - 4 it probably won’t work. Forgiving yourself can look different depending on what it is you are wrestling with, so it’s important to customize this for your situation.
Look at your past self (whether the thing you regret took place 20 minutes ago or 20 years ago) and see her in your mind. Remember that the you of right NOW is not the you of back THEN.
Tell your past self that you forgive her. Literally imagine her in your mind and say the words, “I forgive you for….”.
(Or, one thought that I have seen work really well is, “You should have done better, and you didn’t. And I forgive you for that.”)
STEP 6: Practice step #5 over and over util it becomes normal for you, and notice that the more normal it becomes, the more the regret fades from your body.
STEP 7: When you’re ready, and only then, you can think about what you can learn from this past experience. It may be as clear as. “I don’t want to do that again,” or “Next time I have that kind of opportunity I will make the leap and take it”. Look at whatever it is that you learn as data; it is a jumping off point for the work you do going forward.
Finally, remember that your regret isn’t a requirement. You can choose a different way forward. Let it go, and move forward with your new lessons learned, and without the heavy regret baggage weighting you down. Work on mentally just dropping that bag on the floor and walking forward through the glass doors and into your future - lessons learned and lighter.
You can always make a pivot.