subject: How To Gain Confidence - Why You Should Never Regret Anything [print this page] How often do you regret things that happened in the past? Lots of people spend their lives saying things like:
If I hadnt stuffed up that interview, I would have got that job
I wish I hadnt married him/her
If only things had worked out between us
Regret is the close cousin of anxiety. While anxiety is worry about the future, regret is worry about the past. Thinking about the past in order to learn a lesson (so as not to repeat the mistake again) is sensible. Ruminating about the past and wondering what if is not helpful at all.
There are very good reasons why regret is a futile emotion.
1. Every decision you have ever made as been with good intentions. You have never consciously tried to make my your worse. Knowing this, how can you turn around and feel upset with yourself if something turns out bad?
2. You can only make decisions with the information you have at the time. There is no point looking back, with the benefit of hindsight and ruing a decision you made. If you had known what was going to happen, you probably would have made a different decision.
If you remember these two points, you really cant regret any decision you have ever made. You always (consciously) try to do what you think is best for yourself. And you can only ever work with the information you know.
Even when you make what seem like objectively bad decisions (e.g. smoking, not exercising etc) you do these because there is some other stronger reason against making the right choice. We all have good reasons why we do what we do.
Action Step
Think about the some of the decisions you regret in life:
Did you make the decision hoping things would turn out badly? Of course not!
Do the decisions look bad now, only because you have the benefit of hindsight?
If you agree that you tried your best, and you made the decision based on what you knew at the time, then its time to let it go.
