“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” ― Roy T. Bennett

A life filled with regrets is an unhappy life. Who wants to be haunted by what-ifs, if only or what could have been?

I know how it feels to look back and reflect on life and realise that you regret something that either had a negative impact or completely changed the course of your life.

Regret feels painful, and it’s disempowering. It makes you trust yourself less if you wallow in it.

But since making mistakes, failures, and wrong decisions that cause regrets will always be part of life and being human, how do we deal with it? And more importantly, how do we prevent (or at least lessen) the probability of regretting our actions and decisions in life?

Let me share the wisdom I gained from my own experience and brain science to answer these questions.

I hope these pieces of wisdom will help you not only prevent and deal with regrets but also help you create the elegantly flourishing life you deserve. A well-lived life that you’ll be happy and proud to look back on in your 80s and beyond.

Ways To Deal With Regret

1. Give yourself time to grieve and mourn

The pain and suffering caused by regret can vary depending on the cause and impact it has on your life and the people around you.

Trivial regrets are not so life-altering that you’ll probably get over them quickly and do not need much time for grieving and mourning. (For example, getting the wrong haircut, buying the wrong dress, making a wrong turn and getting stuck in traffic).

But for life-altering regrets that causes suffering not just to yourself but also to the people you care about, the pain will linger. (For example, marrying the wrong man, getting into an accident and hurting someone due to drink driving, committing adultery and ruining your family, gambling your family’s life savings).

You’ll need time to grieve and mourn the loss and negative impact it has on you and others. It’ll even be beneficial to seek professional help to help you deal with all the negative emotions and unhelpful thoughts that come up.

Give yourself the opportunity to heal by allowing yourself to grieve and mourn. And it’s by acknowledging what happened and giving yourself time to process your emotions that you make room for healing and, eventually, move on.

2. Be self-compassionate

I used to beat myself up for all the stupid and painful mistakes I’ve made in life. Mistakes (that were sometimes traumatic) such as choosing and staying with the wrong romantic partner, wrong career/business move, disastrous financial decisions, not prioritising my health, hurting family and friends with my behaviour, not having strong personal boundaries that led to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous people, etc.

But you know what? Being hard on myself didn’t do me any good. Shaming myself the way others have shamed me didn’t make me feel better. It also didn’t undo the damage done by the mistakes and wrong decisions I’ve made.

When I finally extended compassion to myself, I started to heal from the pain. Self-compassion also allowed me to gain a different perspective, insights, and wisdom.

It may also help you to learn a little bit about our brain to help you become more self-compassionate:

• Our brain doesn’t fully mature until our late 20s or early 30s. Thus, the Prefrontal Cortex or the brain’s rational part responsible for decision-making, long-term planning, inhibition of impulse, and delaying gratification, has not reached full maturity. As a result of not being fully developed, we make bad decisions. I hope this will somehow help you to forgive yourself if you’ve made stupid mistakes when you’re young like I did.
• Our environment shapes our brain (both the physical environment and the people we’re surrounded with). Our brain is good at adapting to its environment and therefore highly influenced by the people you surround yourself with and your experiences. The unconscious influence our environment has on us is powerful because it sculpts our brain. Therefore, what’s happening in your environment and the circumstances you were in influenced the decisions you’ve made. It’s not solely your fault.
• Our brain has a negativity bias. It’s good at remembering bad or negative memories and information to protect us but not good at holding on to the positive. As a result, what you recall may not be as bad as you think it is. Perhaps your brain is simply focusing on the negative aspect of what happened.
• Numerous factors influence our brain aside from our environment. Our thoughts, mindset, beliefs, mental and physical health, hormones, and genes all play a role. These are some of the factors that could have also influenced your poor decision.
• Brain research reveals that emotions and intuition play a crucial role in decision-making. Perhaps when you decided at that time, you ignored your intuition and are experiencing negative emotions. Or, you only focused on the “pros and cons list” as what we’re often taught as the rational thing to do. Again, these are factors that unconsciously affect your decision making that you shouldn’t punish yourself for.
• Experiences refine, influence and develop the Prefrontal Cortex of our brain (part of our brain that performs executive functions). Further, making mistakes through trial and error is one of the ways our brain learns that then contribute to the development of the prefrontal cortex. The memories of our experiences then become highly integrated into our decision-making process. Thus, through making mistakes, we learn and become better at making sound decisions in the future.

Knowing this about our brain doesn’t mean that we no longer take responsibility for our actions. Ultimately, we are responsible for our actions. However, it helps to know that these factors could have affected our decisions.

If you need help developing self-compassion, you may want to refer to a piece I wrote about it (Too Hard On Yourself? 5 Ways to Develop Self-Compassion and Become Your Own Best Friend).

3. Focus on the lessons you’ve learned

Since we cannot undo the past, all we can do is learn from it so that we won’t repeat the same mistakes.

Instead of focusing on reliving the regret in your mind and negative emotions that accompany it, focus on the wisdom or benefit you’ve gained instead. Most likely, the experience made you stronger and wiser.

What lessons can you take away from it?

4. Take action: Is there something you can do to make things right?

Although we cannot undo some of our mistakes, what actions can you take to improve the situation or make things right?

Do you need to apologise to the person you hurt? Do you need to make lifestyle changes? Do you need to seek professional help? Do you need to make certain sacrifices?

Reflect on the concrete actions you can do to either alleviate the negative consequence of your decision or to make things right.

5. Ask yourself: did something good came out of this experience?

Reframe how you look at the outcome. What good came out from it, aside from the lessons you learned?

Sometimes, you don’t see this right away; it can even take years before you realise it. We often see and come to understand why certain things have to happen only in retrospect.

In general, I don’t think I will be who I am right now – someone who celebrates living an authentic life and who values kindness, courage, and compassion – if I didn’t go through everything I went through. Some mistakes can turn out to be a blessing in the long term.

6. Practice radical acceptance

Allow room for life to happen. No matter how hard we try, no matter how careful we are, and even if we have the best intentions, sometimes life will not go your way. It’s not your fault, but it’s just is.

We can’t always predict and control the outcome of every action and decision we make.

Unfortunately, we can never go back to the past. What happened cannot be changed but only accepted—no point punishing yourself too (again, back to practising self-compassion).

At some point, you have to accept what happened and make peace with the past. In doing so, the journey towards a brighter and happier future will be easier and so much lighter.

7. Focus on the present moment and the future you’re creating

Apply the lessons you learned to the present moment and in creating a better future. You’re now wiser and stronger. You’re a different person than before. Don’t allow regrets and the past to define you.

How can you savour the present moment? And what kind of future do you envision yourself creating? Focus on those.

Tips On Preventing Regret

• Align your actions and life decisions based on what you value

What do you value? What’s important to you?

I deeply value my health and overall wellbeing, my relationships with family and friends, and making a positive impact on people’s lives. Because of it, I do my best to align every decision and action I make based on what’s important to me.

When you look at my daily routine, how I interact with people, my finances, goals, and overall lifestyle, they all align with and benefit what I value.

The point is, when your actions and life decisions are based on what’s deeply important to you, most likely, you won’t regret the outcome, even if it doesn’t always go your way.

What do you value? How can you align your life to those values?

• Work on healing and developing yourself

Often, our regrettable mistakes stem from unhealed trauma, mindset and beliefs that don’t serve us, and lack of knowledge. For this reason, I believe that the greatest investment you can make is investing in healing and developing yourself (whether on your own or with professional help).

Since decision-making is highly influenced by our emotions, our mental state and the knowledge we have, healing and developing ourselves would result in making better decisions that we won’t regret.

• Learn to trust and listen to yourself more

Looking back, I realised that I regret the things that I didn’t do more than the things I did. Moreover, usually, I regret listening to other people’s advice rather than trusting my judgment and intuition.

The next time you need to make a crucial decision, it might help to ask yourself these questions, aside from weighing the benefits and risks: How does this make me feel? What do my gut and intuition tell me?

Also, remember to be careful who you listen to for advice. Before following someone’s advice, remember that ultimately, you’re the one who has to live with the consequences if it goes wrong. Is the person credible?

And if it’s advice about how to live your life, would you like to live the life of that person giving you advice?

• Remember that strategising is not just for work and business

The word strategy is pervasive in the corporate and business world, and for a good reason. Without effective strategies, businesses will fail. However, I realised that strategising can also be applied to our lives to prevent catastrophes.

So, what’s your plan of action? How will you get from where you are now to where you want to be? How can you minimise risks? If things don’t go as planned, how will you handle it?

Plan an effective strategy for your life to prevent regrets.

• Be clear on your definition of a flourishing, well-lived, and successful life

Take time to dream and imagine the best life for you. You can ask yourself questions such as: What are you doing on a daily basis?  Who do you surround yourself with? Where do you live? How do you spend your days? What are your goals? How do you feel?

The definition of a flourishing, well-lived and successful life is different for every one of us. Make sure that your definition is based on your own beliefs, dreams, and values rather than what your family, friends, and society tell you.

If being married, having kids, and a high powered corporate work with a fancy job title is not part of your definition of a flourishing and successful life, that’s okay. It’s your life, so you can live it the way you want to. Don’t let society or anyone dictate what kind of life you should be living.

• Imagine yourself in your 80s and 90s

What would you regret doing or not doing on your deathbed?

It may sound morbid, but If there’s one thing the pandemic reminded us of, it is the shortness of life. And how life is fleeting and fragile.

Some of us may not even reach the old age of 80s or 90s. So with the time and resources you have, what would you do, what life would you like to create to prevent looking back in your life and regretting anything?

You’d want to look back and celebrate a well-lived life you’re proud of.

I’ll end this piece with the Serenity Prayer written by Reinhold Niebuhr. Even if you’re not religious or you don’t believe in God, I think this is a beautiful prayer that encapsulates the need for surrender, acceptance and change in the face of regret and other areas of life:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace”.

Key Takeaways

As part of the art of being human, we will make bad decisions and mistakes that lead to regrets. However, we don’t have to live an unhappy life filled with regrets and suffering.

Some of the ways we can deal with regret are: acknowledging the negative emotions and grieving, being compassionate with ourselves for being imperfect, focusing on the wisdom, lessons, and good things that came out of the experience. Further, taking actions to make things right, accepting what happened, focusing on the present moment and being optimistic about the future can also help.

When it comes to preventing regrettable decisions in the future, it’ll be helpful to ensure that we take into account what we genuinely value when making decisions. We also have to trust ourselves and our intuition more, work on healing and developing ourselves, come up with life strategies and our definition of a flourishing and successful life.

The goal is to look back in our lives in our 80s and 90s and be able to raise a glass and celebrate an authentic, happy life that we are proud of creating.

Now It’s Your Turn

1. Reflection: What do you regret most in life? Is it really something to regret or a blessing in disguise? Are you happy and proud of the life you’re currently living? If not, what steps can you take to be on the right track?
2. Action Step: On your journal or a piece of paper, write down your 3 most important values. Make sure to check if these values align with your decisions in the future.  

Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts and experience about dealing with and preventing regrets in life.

Reference

Costandi, M. (2013). The Human Brain: 50 ideas you really need to know. Quercus