3 ways to help you outsmart regret

Regret is a negative emotion about wishing things had been different. Here's how to put it into perspective and reframe the way you look backwards to go forward according to your own values and purpose.

Remorse and regrets manifest harder, meaner and stronger with age - it’s only natural that the longer you’ve lived, the more ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’ you’ve beaten yourself up with.

By Alex Brooks

Throw out your thought garbage around regret

Regret can fuel thought garbage, where you tell yourself a new version of the story each time you go over it in your own mind, treating yourself with greater contempt each time.

Internalising these painful thoughts puts us at risk of being paralysed into thinking we cannot change, evolve or make amends.

Author Daniel Pink - who has written the ultimate book about regret - has said that regret is a positive sign our brain is functioning well.

“We can use our regrets as data,” Pink has said, to help us “clarify what we value most in life.”

Dismiss the collateral damage of regret, especially anger and disappointment

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have learned that the way the brain processes the complex emotion of regret may be linked to an individual’s ability to cope with stress.

Being consumed by regret and associated emotions like anger, disappointment and despair keeps you stuck and stressed out.

It’s best to move forward by being ‘compassionate’ about the choices you’ve made in the past, no matter how much you regret them.

Most of us treat ourselves much more cruelly than we treat our friends - while you beat yourself up about staying in a bad job/relationship/experience, you would support a friend to see the positives and move forward.

Pink has said that instead of making harsh black and white statements about regret - “I am a bad person for not helping my child/friend/parent at the right time” - it helps to switch your thinking from “if only” to “at least.

For example, “At least I recognise that I didn’t behave the way I wanted to when my child/friend/parent needed me, and I can change or adapt my behaviour to be the person I truly want to be”.

As we mature, we can all try to find the wisdom to turn regret into insight.

Move towards your values, not your bad choices

Regrets can be broadly categorised into four themes, such as:

• Failing to reach out to others - “why did I stop connecting with that friend I made at work when I actually liked them?”
• Moral lapses - “I shouldn’t have been so greedy about X, Y or Z”
• Incremental choices with consequences - “If only I’d saved that $40 a week instead of buying coffee each day, I could be wealthy today”
• Holding back when boldness (or vulnerability) was called for - “why didn’t I ever pursue my dream of painting/performing/starting a business”

It’s impossible to reinvent the past and do it all over again, but most of us can move towards amending our regrets.

Can you reconnect with a lost friend or start saving a little bit more money now? Can you indulge your passion for painting/performing/starting a business in some way?

And can you treat the people you love - or even those you don’t - with the kindness and compassion of the person you would like to become (even if you aren’t perfect now).

There’s no point dwelling on what could have been. Looking backwards can be more than a wistful or painful exercise: it can become a powerful force for positive change.

Regret can be a valuable tool for personal growth and all of us can find some level of wisdom to transform ourselves into doing something better in the future.