Your Experience of Regret is Normal (The 4 Steps to Live & Thrive With Regret)

Alfred was 55 years old when he read his obituary in the French newspaper.

“The Merchant of Death is Dead!”

He was shocked. The newspaper erroneously misidentified him for his brother, Ludwig, who had just died. And the biography was scathing to say the least “he became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.”

Yes, Alfred was the inventor of dynamite. You most definitely know him, but you know him as Alfred Nobel.

Legend has it that after he read his obituary, Nobel felt a deep sense of regret. He spent the last of his years continuing to invent, but focused on connecting people and established the Nobel Prize, where he left most of his fortune (amounting to half a billion dollars by today’s measure). Alfred died in 1896, just 8 years after his brother, but secured a legacy as a patron of intellectual culture.

The problem with regret is that we all have it. In a survey of 4,489 people across the United States, it was found that Americans are more likely to feel regret than they are to floss their teeth! A whopping 82% of the people surveyed said that feeling regretful is at least an occasional part of their lives.

But popular culture tells us regret is wrong.

“No regrets. There is no time for that.” A.R. Rahman

“I have no regrets. Everything happens to you for a reason.” Rita Mero

“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regret.” Dr. Steve Maraboli

The truth is regret is a real human emotion. Only sociopaths and people who have their orbital frontal lobe damaged can’t feel regret.

The goal is not to avoid it. The goal is to use it.

BASE PRINCIPLE

Live without regret. Treat it as a signal and use it to thrive.

WHAT IF?

What if instead of avoiding regret, you lived with it? What if you were comfortable with regret? What if you were able to use regret to better yourself?

According to Kathryn Schulz’s famous Ted Talk about regret, four things can happen to us when we experience regret:

1. Denial - “Make it go away!”

2. Bewilderment - “How could I have done that?”

3. Punishment - “I could kick myself!”

4. Rumination - Repeat 1,2 and 3

When you get to number 4, it’s when you get stuck in a cycle of counterfactual thinking and negative self-talk, revisiting past events and inventing imaginary narratives of “if only I did that” or “if only I didn’t do that”.

It becomes an infinite loop of negativity.

To avoid this loop, accept the feels of regret and take these 4 steps.

1/ Evaluate

Is your regret a true mis-step? Or are you comparing it to an imagined alternative? I regret not taking this other job, which could have been so much better. Will it really? Do you actually know? Acknowledging the real or made-up regret is a critical first step.

2/ Amend

If indeed the regret is real, like saying something unkind and you wish you hadn’t. Go make amends. Apologize, make things right. Sometimes that might not be possible, say the person you said something unkind too passed away.

3/ Forgive

Accept what has happened and forgive yourself. Humans are naturally flawed and only through forgiveness can we grow from it. Self-compassion builds self-esteem and self-growth. You can look at the regret and find a silver lining - “I shouldn’t have attended med school, but at least I met my spouse there!” There is also a commonly used cognitive psychological model called REACH

Recall the hurt

Empathize and be kind

Altruistically forgive oneself

Commit publicly or share the story

Hold on to that forgiveness

4/ Learn

The most crucial part of the 4 steps is learning. What can you learn from this regret? How should you think or act differently moving forward? Daniel Pink, in his book The Power of Regret suggests that you pair up new year’s resolutions with a regret to make them more powerful.

Let’s learn to live and thrive with regret.

I hope you didn’t regret reading this issue of Legend Letters! 😅

​Live your legend,

Howie Chan

Creator of Legend Letters

​Read my story​

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Sources:

1. Penberthy, J.Kim, How to Overcome a Stubborn Regret, Greater Good Science Center, Berkeley, January 14, 2022 - LINK

2. Selling a Crazy Idea: How Radically New Products Can Gain Traction, Knowledge at Wharton Staff, April 1, 2016 - LINK

3. Schulz, Kathryn, Don’t regret regret, Ted Talk, November 2011 - LINK

4. Stillman, Jessica, New Study: The Path Not Taken Is Probably Way Worse Than You Imagine (So Regret Your Choices Less), Inc Magazine - LINK

5. Pink, Daniel, The Power of Regret (Book) - LINK