Regret is a universal emotional response experienced when individuals regret past decisions. Fortunately, you can learn many techniques to understand, manage, and cope with feelings of regret when they arise. Mental health professionals can provide much-needed support throughout this process.
What Is Regret?
Regret is an emotional response triggered by a lack of personal action when presented with a perceived opportunity.1 Having regret is a common human experience, as many feel they have missed out on big opportunities for renewal, change, or growth.1
Research supports that the biggest regrets in life are associated with parenting, education, romance, career, leisure, and self-improvement.1 Living with regret often stems from self-blame, whether as negative thinking patterns, self-destructive behaviors, or low self-esteem.2
Characteristics associated with feelings of regret include:1,2
- Self-blame
- Ruminations on better outcomes
- Feelings of dissatisfaction
- Feelings of disappointment
- Indecisiveness
Why Do People Experience Regret?
Individuals dealing with regret often struggle with past decisions, whether direct actions or inactions. They may regret choices they deem unjustifiable, wishing they had acted differently.3 In other cases, they ruminate on what they should have done because they failed to take the necessary steps to protect someone or themselves.
Our choices can lead to regretful feelings, and these factors fall into numerous categories, including education, career, romance, parenting, the self, or child-rearing. Living with regret often becomes harder when individuals believe they mishandled a situation or missed once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.1
12 Tips on How to Deal With Regret
Regret comes in many forms, whether big or small. These regrets can lead to motivation for personal growth, or they can take you down a pathway to depression and self-chastisement. How you manage these feelings can make a real difference in your life. Focus on accepting your emotions, making amends (when possible), and looking toward the future.
Here are 12 useful tips on how to deal with regret:
1. Acknowledge Your Feelings
Acknowledging and accepting your feelings is essential when determining how to get over regret. Specifically, identify which emotion you feel (“I feel regret”) rather than just thinking (“I feel bad”). Doing so helps prompt you to think about strategies to minimize the pain of similar future experiences.
2. Avoid Obsessing About Past Regrets
Learn from your past rather than regretting a decision. Continuing to chastise yourself with past regrets will compromise your ability to make better decisions in the present and future. Obsessing about regrets will only make you feel worse. Use this as an opportunity to grow and inspire yourself.
3. Assess How You Cope With Your Regrets
Take time to evaluate choices that led to regret. Did you ignore, minimize, or blame others for your feelings? These techniques often amplify negative emotions, making coping with regret more challenging. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that the past is in the past.
4. Show Yourself Some Kindness
Having made poor choices in the past does not mean you are forever doomed to repeat mistakes over and over again. Everyone falls short sometimes, and you should not beat yourself up for being human. Feeling regret is a normal part of life, so treat yourself with kindness as you find ways to deal with your emotions.
5. Give Yourself Time to Heal From a Past Regret
Dealing with regret and guilt is a difficult task. You must give yourself time to heal from the consequences of your actions. Constantly thinking about these choices perpetuates negative thoughts and feelings. Focus on what relaxes, nourishes, and energizes you in positive ways. In time, the negative emotions will begin to subside.
6. Distract Yourself
Focus your mind and energy on a project with positive aspects instead of past regrets. Spend time with people with whom you feel comfortable. Candidly discuss your challenges with them. Doing so means you are less apt to ruminate about past regrets.
7. Create a New Set of Goals
Regret comes from ruminating about previous decisions and wishing for corrective actions that cannot happen.4 Instead of focusing on the past, revisit and edit your original goals as needed to improve future outlooks. Creating new aspirations can help you honor your values and priorities while remaining flexible as you approach the future.
8. View Regret as an Opportunity to Revisit Your Values
Shift your perception of regret as an opportunity to take a second look at your values. Do you regret making a decision that pushed aside your personal beliefs? Would you have felt differently had you stayed true to yourself? Take these answers and look for areas that could improve with time and attention.
9. Forgive Yourself
People with regret often struggle with self-blame. Forgiving yourself becomes difficult when you believe you made a wrong decision about something important. Accept that you did your best with what you knew at the time. Doing so encourages self-compassion and can help you push past regret.
10. Make Amends for Your Mistakes
Sometimes, we cannot control the outcome of a situation. Still, decisions we make during stressful times can make or break a relationship. Consider making amends for your mistakes if you regret hurting someone. Doing so can help you relieve guilt and rekindle a broken part of your relationship with a loved one.
11. Plan for Similar Choices
You can see regret as an opportunity to plan better for future similar situations. For example, consider how your previous choices influenced the outcome of a fight, stressful circumstance, or relationship. Make a simple pros and cons list of possible alternative decisions. You may feel more equipped to handle challenges next time.
12. Reframe Your Perception of the Event
Regret is associated with the perception of missing out on an opportunity. You can combat these feelings by considering that the event occurred for a reason. Other times, a sense of spirituality can help you derive meaning from regret. Reframe the situation as something you can learn, grow, and mature from.
Impacts of Not Dealing With Regret
Having regrets is a normal emotional response to missed opportunities. However, intense guilt can cause significant issues in your life. Sometimes, untreated negative emotions can complicate mental health conditions like grief, low self-esteem, and depression. Regret can also negatively impact your relationships and career satisfaction.
Possible impacts of not coping with regret include:
- Complications in grief: Research has found that prolonged self-blame can complicate grief and depression.
- Low self-esteem: Regret can negatively impact self-esteem.5 People may feel at fault for a decision, meaning they question themselves and their abilities to handle difficult situations.
- Depression: Feelings of intense regret can exacerbate existing depressive symptoms or spur a depressive episode.
- Lack of relationship satisfaction: People may become dissatisfied with their partners if they regret past decisions or relationships.6 They may feel like they missed out on other relationships, opportunities, or goals. Ultimately, these beliefs can contribute to resentment in marriages or partnerships.
- Experiencing burnout: One study found career choice regret was associated with work burnout and depressive symptoms.7
When to Seek Professional Help
You don’t have to deal with regret on your own. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help people break ongoing negative patterns of regret. Therapists guide patients in altering and reshaping unhealthy thoughts and feelings to achieve positive outcomes. You can find a therapist in your area by browsing an online therapist directory or consulting your doctor for recommendations.
In My Experience
Iris Waichler, LCSW How to Deal With Regret Infographics
