How to deal with regret

Calypso Barnum-Bobb is a self-discovery coach who helps people express their most authentic selves so they can create lives they’re truly obsessed with.

When you’re feeling regret, the first thing I’d invite you to do is to check whether that’s actually the emotion you’re experiencing. I’ll explain. In the digital age, we seem to have more choice - and more visibility of other people’s choices - than ever before. And it seems to me that constantly being fed other people’s achievements and lifestyles is leading us to question our own decisions even more than before.

So if you’re feeling weird after a big life decision, ask yourself: am I truly feeling regret, or am I comparing myself to someone else? If it’s the latter, check out my tips for countering comparison.

But let’s say you’ve investigated the feeling and come to the conclusion that yes, it is regret that you’re feeling. That’s okay! It happens. Maybe you’ve left a 9-5 job to set up your own business and are missing the security, or took a promotion you’re not really sure you wanted. Here’s what to do about those feelings.

Remind yourself that nothing is concrete

If you’ve made a change before, you can make it again. Reminding yourself of this is key!

And while there might be certain factors in place that mean change can’t happen right away, you might also be holding yourself back due to limiting beliefs you’ve been handed. For example, there seems to be a common belief that once you start a new job, you HAVE to be there for a certain period of time for it to “look good” on your CV. This is something I would disagree with - no path is ever linear.

Forgive yourself

We can spend so much time berating ourselves for making the ‘wrong’ choice, but there needs to be self-forgiveness. Maybe you made a decision and it didn’t go the way you thought it would, but you are still worthy of respect and an enjoyable life.

Writing yourself a letter of forgiveness to yourself - the kind that you might send to someone else if they asked for your forgiveness - can be a great way to achieve this. Read back your letter, and let your self-loathing go.

Check whether you owe someone an apology

We’re interconnected beings - and if the decision that you made negatively impacted someone, it’s important to acknowledge that.

It might mean that you need to sit down and have a conversation with someone, or write them a message or a letter. Clearing the air like this is important because regret breeds guilt - and this has heaviness that can hold us back in all sorts of ways.

Explore the lesson

Whenever we experience regret, there’s a lesson there - and we need to explore it. If you’ve made a career move that hasn’t been right, how can you use the experience to learn about yourself? You then get to do something with that self-knowledge, which is a powerful position to be in.

Look for the light

When you’re feeling regret, it is so easy to start painting a picture about how great everything would be if you’d made a different choice. But you’ll never know what would’ve happened.

That means the best thing you can do in the present moment is to look for the light - what are the positives? Maybe that step-down career wise means you have more time to connect with family, or maybe that stressful promotion gives you more money for savings.

Whether you’re experiencing regret at the moment, or find that fear of regret is holding you back from making big changes in your life, I’m here to reassure you that there is always a solution. Remind yourself that nothing is concrete, reflect on what the experience has taught you and always look for the light as you move forward.