How to deal with regret?

How to deal with regret: Regrets can lead to motivation for personal growth or they can take you down a path to depression. There are many strategies you can discover and use as ways to cope with feelings of regret when they arise. How regrets are managed can make a difference in terms of learning and dealing with such complicated feelings.

How to deal with regret:

Accept your feelings

Accept the feelings connected with regret. This helps you to think about strategies you could use to decrease the pain of similar future experiences. Particularly identify which emotion you are feeling instead of just thinking about what will help you to tolerate the emotions you are facing.

Do not be obsessed with past regrets

Try to learn from a past decision that you know has gone wrong. If you continue to criticize yourself for past decisions, it will compromise your ability to make better judgments in the present and the future. Obsessing past regrets will only make you feel poorer. Use this as an opportunity to inspire yourself to make better choices in the future.

Evaluate how you can deal with regrets

Take time to assess the choice that ended in regret. Did you blame others in past, underestimate your feelings, or overlook them altogether? These techniques tend to boost feelings of regret and make them harder to deal with. Take a long and deep breath and remember, that choice you made is in the past.

Offer yourself some kindness

Having made a bad choice in the past does not mean you are forever condemned to repeat this mistake. Permit yourself to tackle a similar situation with the advantage of experience and a better understanding of how you can react more positively.

Also Read: Side effects of repressed anger.

Give yourself time to heal from past 

If your regret is connected to a major past decision, you need to give yourself time to heal from the outcomes of that choice. Constantly thinking about it will keep the negative thoughts present forever. Focus on things that will relax, nurture, and energize you in positive ways. 

Distract yourself

Focus your mind on a project with an outcome that will make you feel adequate. Spend time with people you feel comfortable with and who you can openly talk with. If you are focused on a current positive distraction, you will less tend to think about past regrets.

Create new goals

Use the knowledge you gained to make new realistic goals. Ask yourself if there is anything you can do to improve the past, respond to future situations, and create more positive results. Celebrate when you complete a goal. If you think that a goal you set is not realistic, set a new one within the domain of more practical possibilities.

At the end

We only experience regret over a bad outcome when, at some point in time, we could have controlled the negative outcome. If you do not take the chance to evolve, change, and grow from an adverse experience, regret can become all-consuming. Identify why your regret is so deep and how it reveals more about your feelings. Doing so can create greater self-understanding and purpose.