When things don’t work out as planned, it’s natural to feel regretful. But rather than letting this feeling hold you back, learn how to deal with regret so you will be able to move on with your life.
In this post, we’ll look at how regret works and why it happens. Then, I’ll offer some strategies for coping with it so you can forgive yourself for a past mistake.
Regret is a common feeling that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. Regret can make you feel powerless, stuck in the past, and like you didn’t do everything you could have done to change your circumstances. When you let feelings of regret take over your life it can create a lot of emotional pain that can damage you in the long run.
feelings of regret is a Power emotion
When you feel regretful about something (and believe me, we all do), it’s easy to start questioning your decisions and wishing things had turned out differently. You may feel like you’ve let yourself down or that you’re not as capable as you thought. You might even feel angry, frustrated, sad, and guilty all at once.
Remember regret is an important part of life because it helps us learn from our mistakes and make better decisions in the future. When we let regret cloud our thoughts about what could have been and how things might be different, we often get sidetracked by the emotional pain from what “could have been”. This is why it’s so important to work through your regrets and learn from your past mistakes.
Regret can make you feel powerless
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if only you had done something differently, things would have turned out better. This can lead to a downward spiral of negative self-talk and even depression. When we feel regretful, it’s important to remember that our regrets don’t define us—they simply reflect on past experiences that helped shape who we are today.
When you feel regretful or ashamed, it’s hard to imagine a better future. You may believe that your past mistakes are an indication of who you really are as a person and conclude that there is nothing for which you can be proud.
But it’s important to remember that regret is an emotion, not a fact. Feeling regretful doesn’t mean that you’ve failed in some way or that there’s nothing good about you. In fact, feeling regretful is a sign of maturity and wanting to do better in the future.
“Regret is a tough but fair teacher. To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life.” -Brene Brown
Regret leaves you asking "what if?"
Regret is so painful because it reminds you of all the choices that led to a single moment, and makes you wonder if there might have been another way.
- “What if I had made a different choice?”
- ” what if I had tried harder?”
- “What if I had been better ?”
- “What if I had said something else?”
Regret is the worst part of living with our mistakes—we can’t change what’s already happened. However, it also has its benefits: regret helps us learn from our past so that we don’t repeat those mistakes in the future.
Although we all have regrets, if we learn how to deal with regret as learning opportunities and do not let them hold us back from progressing forward in life, then they can be useful tools rather than detrimental emotions holding us back from personal growth. Sometimes you just have except that you made a mistake and forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time.
Regret can hold you back from being your best self
If you don’t learn how to deal with regret, it can make you feel inadequate and cause disappointment in yourself. You may also feel like no matter what you do, it’s not good enough—and this will stop you from trying new things because you don’t want to make more mistakes.
When you let regret consume you, eventually the pressing over past mistakes will lead to feeling depressed and create a downward spiral of negative thoughts that makes it difficult for you to move forward in life.
Regret is painful, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. In fact, regret has the potential to become one of your biggest allies if you learn how to use it as an opportunity for growth rather than as a reason for self-blame or despair.
Our thoughts are so powerful. they can help us achieve our goals or sabotage us: Are Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back? The 6 Tips To Improve Your Self Worth
Types of Emotional Pain the Accompany Regret
The emotions that follow regret can be intense and overwhelming, so I’ve broken them down into their most basic components for clarity.
- Guilt: You feel like you should have been able to prevent the situation.
- Shame: You might feel bad about yourself for causing the event, or for being involved in it.
- Anger: You might be angry at those involved in the situation, or yourself for not taking action sooner.
- Fear: You might feel fear that something like this is bound to happen again because we failed to prevent it the first time.
- Helplessness: You might feel like you have no power to change the situation or prevent it from happening.
Some people try to avoid these painful emotions by avoiding situations where they might make mistakes—but this only leads to more-severe negative consequences down the road. It’s better when you can learn from your mistakes so that next time you won’t have to experience such intense regret again!
There are ways that we can overcome regret and move on from mistakes in our lives, but first, we need to understand what regret is and where it comes from—then we can learn how not to avoid feeling regretful about past choices but also use these feelings as fuel for making better decisions going forward.
Related: The 6 Stages Of Emotional Healing. How To Heal From Emotional Wounds.
how to deal with regret
The first step of how to deal with regret is accepting that you can’t change the past. Life is a series of decisions, and some of those decisions are going to be wrong.
Sometimes, you’ll make the wrong decision because you didn’t know any better at the time.
Sometimes, you’ll make the wrong decision because of outside influences or pressures that were beyond your control.
What leads to bad decision making?
Regardless of how it happened or why it happened, regretting a mistake in the past isn’t going to help anything. When it comes down to it, regretting things in life isn’t always bad—it can make us learn from our mistakes and become better people in the future!
When we make mistakes and are willing to acknowledge them, this is called “accountability.” When we hold ourselves accountable for our actions it means not only will we not repeat those mistakes but also we won’t blame others or try to justify what happened in the past.
When you take accountability for your actions you will be able to start healing from the emotional pain that was caused by living in the past and holding onto regret.
So How Do You Get Over Past Regrets?
1. Accept that you can't change the past
When you are dealing with regret, it is important to understand that you cannot change the past. Once this realization has set in, healing can begin. Acceptance is a mature and balanced way of dealing with difficult situations. It means learning to work around what has happened and not allowing it to destroy your self-confidence or make other areas of your life suffer
2. Don't beat yourself up over your mistakes
It’s important to understand that you don’t need to be perfect. You are not a failure for making mistakes, and the only thing that matters is how you handle the situation. When you make a mistake, try not to dwell on it or get angry with yourself and forgive yourself for not knowing better.
Your regrets don’t have to define you—you can let them go and move on with your life if you choose. When something goes wrong, it’s natural to feel sad or discouraged, but don’t let these feelings consume you and ruin your entire life.
Instead of beating yourself up over every mistake and feeling like a failure all the time, try looking at things from another angle:
- Every experience teaches us something new about ourselves and other people around us;
- Every mistake opens up space for growth;
- Every failure gives us an opportunity for success
3. Hold yourself accountable for your mistakes
Taking responsibility for your actions is critical in overcoming regret. When you make a mistake, there are three ways to respond:
- Make a plan for how to correct the mistake.
- Do not make excuses for your mistakes, It’s always better to take responsibility for your own mistakes than it is to blame someone else.
- Don’t let others use the mistake against you, everyone deserves a second chance
When you are accountable for your mistake, you accept that what has been done can not be undone but instead start planning on how to move forward.
4. Forgive yourself and forgive others
It’s easy to be angry and bitter when you feel regretful, but it can also be a waste of energy. The best way to deal with regret is by forgiving yourself or forgiving others who may have hurt you. This might seem like a strange step in the process, but it’s actually one of the most important ones.
Forgiveness is not about condoning your or someone else’s actions or letting them get away with it—it’s about letting go of all that anger and bitterness that comes from holding onto those feelings so tightly. Holding onto those feelings will weigh you down and make you feel worse overall; forgiveness helps lift that burden from your shoulders and gives you room for more positive emotions in your life instead
5. Focus on the positive things you do right, not the negatives
When we focus on regret, we tend to dwell on the negative aspects of our lives that are beyond our control. This makes us feel bad about ourselves and what we have accomplished. When you find yourself in this negative thinking spiral and overcome with feelings of regret try to:
- Think positively about the things in your life that are going well, and think of ways you can make them even better.
- Focus on building a positive mindset and life that you can be proud of, no matter how small your accomplishments seem.
- Focus on what you can do to make yourself happy. If your life needs changing, then change it. Changes are difficult but necessary for growth and development.
And don’t forget to be kind to yourself. The world is a tough place and it’s easy to get caught up in the stress of everyday life. But if you want to feel better, then you need to take care of yourself first.
Related: The Powerful Effects Of Neuroplasticity. Why Having a Grateful Heart Will Improve Your Life.
6. Move forward instead of dwelling on the past
You cannot undo your past, accept that you can’t change what happened, only how you react to it. The past is gone, so don’t waste time trying to change it or dwell on things that have already occurred. Instead, focus on the future and making positive changes in your life.
I know this is easier said than done, but it is important that we don’t let ourselves become paralyzed by feelings of regret. If a regret lingers too much in your mind, it will only serve as a distraction from achieving what needs to be done today and tomorrow—and that’s not fair to you!
Does regret fade over time?
Feeling likfe you made the wronf choice or missed out on something will always be a part of living life. Life is full of “WHAT IF’S”. But even though it’s impossible to go back and do things differently, you can learn from your mistakes and move forward with a new perspective.
Regrets are simply an unfortunate part of life that we must all deal with at some point. Remembering this will help you to accept them as part of being human, instead of letting them be a source of despair or self-hatred.
As you live your life, it will become clear to you that some of the things you once thought were bad turned out to be blessings in disguise.
"The sweet is never as sweet without the sour." -Brian Shelby
Final Thoughts
It’s normal to feel regret when you make a mistake, but it can be destructive if we allow ourselves to dwell on the past.
If you allow yourself to wallow in feelings of regret and never move on from them, it’s unlikely that you will be able to live happily. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, learn how important it is to focus instead on what good things do exist in your life.
The following steps will help you overcome your regrets:
- Be aware of why you’re feeling regretful
- Accept responsibility for your actions
- Learn from mistakes by asking yourself “what could I have done differently?”
- Figure out what lesson can be learned and applied to future decisions
- Forgive yourself. It’s ok to make mistakes or wrong decisions its apart of life
At the end of the day, regret is not something to be afraid of because it’s natural to feel it at some point in your life. As long as you’re aware of your faults and work on improving yourself, then there’s no reason not to embrace regret as a tool for growth!
