Verified by 
Embarrassment
How Your Regrets Can Actually Help You
To best go forward, might you first need to go backward?
Posted October 6, 2016
Today in America the dominant opinion on regret is essentially to get over it, let it go, or—if you’re a New Yorker—“fuhgeddaboudit!” In her TED Talk on the subject, this is how Kathryn Schulz puts it:
Our great cultural Kool-Aid about regret . . . is that lamenting things that occurred in the past is an absolute waste of time, that we should always look forward and not backward, and that one of the noblest and best things we can do is strive to live a life free of regret.
By definition, all regret is retrospective—whether it’s an eBay purchase you made a few seconds ago (as in, instant buyer’s remorse), or the ill-advised decision you made to drop out of college some three decades ago. And it’s generally accompanied by the thought that your life would somehow be better now if only you’d chosen differently in the past.
One fascinating feature of the adversely self-evaluative emotion of regret (which is rarely recognized) is that it also encompasses another emotion—whether that’s self-directed anger, embarrassment, humiliation, sorrow, depression, grief, guilt, shame, or remorse—or even some combination of these distressful emotions.
An additional aspect of regret is that it’s based on the unwarranted assumption that at the time you did something you later lamented, you actually could have done otherwise—that there were other, superior choices you could have made. After all, regret presumes personal “agency,” or free will. But ask yourself: given your level of impulsivity—or risk avoidance (partly determined by your biological heritage)—as well as the meaning back then you'd attributed to each of your prior experiences, could you—in that decisive moment—have acted any differently from how you felt compelled to?
As a psychologist, I frequently emphasize to clients that their past behaviors, however bad about them they may still feel, can best be understood on the basis of their “inner programming” up till that point. And, in all likelihood, this “patterning” was adaptive in their family of origin, and so became part of their sense of self—or “how to be” in the world. Unfortunately, though, all children tend to universalize (or rather, “absolutize”) their early experience, such that belief structures —which seemed pivotal to their emotional survival—become, if not regularly “updated,” misguided, maladaptive, and self-defeating. Sometimes, even malignant.
And that’s why, if you’re to permanently move beyond your regrets, the assumptions, ruminations, and misgivings that tend to go with them need to be critically re-examined.
If you undertake a review of past behaviors you still regret, what’s key is to learn as many useful things about them as possible. Otherwise, you’ll continue to remain burdened by these old, still-irksome feelings. But creatively “processing” your regrets in order to get them resolved, though certainly not without a certain pain, is yet one of the best paths I know that can lead you to valuable self-insights—and to self-forgiveness. And to personal wisdom. For wisdom is never a direct result of experience as such. It derives from devoting the time and effort that allows you to “evolve” an accurate, deeper understanding of that experience.
Being able, compassionately, to appreciate the dysfunctional or flawed thinking that led to the behavior you later came to regret, enables you—or better, motivates you—to be on guard against repeating that behavior, which, even now, you may be susceptible to.
So, for instance, you may have acted imprudently, or rashly, in the past because you didn’t yet know how to keep your impulses under control. Might this still be a problem? Are you still hindered by the habit of not, beforehand, counting the possible costs of an action you’re about to take? And if so, what steps do you need to take now so that your future behavior will be more thought-out, more level-headed, and less governed by possibly transient, mood-related feelings?
Additionally, in reviewing your past regrets, when you had an opportunity to do something special—or be with someone special—did you refrain from taking action because your anxieties about failure or rejection left you immobilized? If stepping out of your comfort zone felt overwhelming to you, what fears might you possibly still need to confront? As Mark Twain once remarked: “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is” (even though, admittedly, such an act increases the chance of a fall). Ironically, it might be said that the very fear of taking risks, risks later regret.
On the contrary, resisting your anxieties, not letting them dictate your behavior, permits you to “go for it.” And to quote a famous proverb: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”—meaning that you can’t expect to achieve much of anything unless you’re willing to do battle with your fears and take some risks.
Another thing to consider is that what you regret you frequently do so because your decision wasn’t in line with your values or goals. So, might you—right now!—raise your consciousness about what your core ideals are all about? That way you can ensure that going forward your behavior will mirror the person you want to be. And this might be just the time to do some vital “values clarification” work. For how else can you become more aware of what—for the individual you are, or aspire to be—represents “right behavior” for you? Ask yourself: When, earlier, you needed to choose one action over another, did you know yourself well enough to make a choice you wouldn’t later come to regret?
At this point it should be apparent that living a life of no regrets is about taking action—or deciding not to take one (!)—based on your knowledge of who you are, and who you’re striving to become. But please note, even with this expanded awareness, you won’t be able to avoid making mistakes. For as another saying goes: “Hindsight is always 20/20” or, also relevant here, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards” (Soren Kierkegaard). Nonetheless, as long as you make choices in accord with your beliefs and best available judgment, then—regardless of the outcome—you’ll really have no need to “afflict” yourself with regret.
Here's one last, extended, quotation from an excellent article on the subject. In some ways it sums up much of what I’ve been getting at:
A lot of psychological research in therapy suggests that it’s really mindfulness that helps deal with depression, suicide, and other negative ideation. . . . Nietzsche would probably have predicted that anything that got people to stop and take stock of their lives would have some inherent psychological value. Indeed, we’re finding in scientific literature that mindfulness can get people to [not only] accept their flaws and mistakes and move past regret, but also be more lucid about the world they live in and how they build that world with others. [“The Psychology (and Philosophy) of ‘No Regrets,’” by Jared Keller, 04/17/2015]
In conclusion, it’s impossible not, initially, to experience some regret when you think about things you wish you’d never said or done. But don’t blame yourself either. For at the time your need or desire to do what you did was so strong that you couldn’t help yourself. Moreover, never forget that making mistakes is inevitable. But learning from them—and forgiving yourself for them—is not. So, looking back, that’s a choice you can still make. (And, as regards "looking back," here's another post of mine you might want to take a look at: "Do Your Trees Keep You From Recognizing Your Forest?")
Finally, if you’re continuing to beat yourself up over a past action (or inaction), ask yourself: How, if at all, does this serve you? Or,for that matter—unless it's something that can be "repaired"—anyone else?
If you could relate to this post and think others you know might also, please consider forwarding them its link.
To check out other posts I’ve done for Psychology Today online—on a broad variety of psychological topics—click here.
© 2016 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.
---To be notified whenever I post something new, I invite readers to join me on Facebook—as well as on Twitter where, additionally, you can follow my various psychological and philosophical musings.
