How to deal with Regrets about your Decisions

SUMMARY

Regrets may arise after even the most well-crafted decision. We could have prepared more for the outcomes, deliberated longer on more alternatives, or even made a different decision. Regrets could last briefly or persist longer in time. Research shows that regrets of shorter duration come from an action, while enduring regrets are triggered by something we did not do otherwise known as an inaction. While there are popular recommendations to deal with regrets, I give 5 tips in this episode that are less aligned to prevailing suggestions. To wit, I depart from dual options of either dwell in regrets or change your life, and I suggest that you take more courage to reflect on your regrets to concretize improvements. If you hear someone telling you not to worry as many people have the same regrets, I’d rather ask you to love the uniqueness in your situation. Most importantly, I recommend that you embrace your decisions including the process and the outcomes as all these are opportunities for personal growth.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

I focus on how to deal with regrets about your decisions.

I think this is something really normal that sometimes we decide to do something like a project and after some time we regret spending so much time or or little time in it. At other times we say we won't get into like we won't get into a particular venture. But we find out that once we have decided to go into it we're a bit late. We actually lost a lot of opportunity and many of our friends who got into it are earning a lot. So we have regretted losing that opportunity to be there.

A regret is a cognitive state and/or an emotional state.

At the cognitive level we might be spending so much time thinking that we should have done this or we should not have done that. We could know that we have missed an opportunity.

At other times regrets could manifest at the emotional level like we get a stomach ache or headache or some pain. Sometimes we get upset without feeling physical symptoms at all. We're just thinking of the bad outcomes of our decisions or we are thinking that we have missed a huge opportunity.

You might ask how come Avic is talking about this only now? Well because I have decided I could help people with making decisions and regrets would really come as a consequence of making decisions. It's really like forewarning you that if you are very intentional about making good decisions then be prepared that you will meet regrets. So this is one way for me to somehow cushion the bad effect or the bad consequences of having those regrets. It's really forewarning you that it can happen.

Regrets may take a short time or it can take a long time. For some it can take half a day for example. There could be some small regrets like your boss didn't like what you did so probably you spend some time sipping coffee thinking about it or talking about it to a close friend. You could be consoled by the words: No problem, it does happen.

Regrets can take years. I can tell you my case for example. I was taking care of my mother in in her last days. We were in a condo when I was bringing her every day for radiation. At a certain time she was saying "I want to go back to Malolos, I want to go home." And since I was alone then, I was not with my siblings. I was of course thinking my siblings would also agree with me that it's much better that she would continue getting the radiation. But after suffering so much pain throughout the night she had a heart attack and she we rushed her to the hospital. She didn't make it and she died.

Sometimes when I think about it there's that regret but it didn't take very long because in the end I know my mother is not anymore in pain. Somehow I had better memories of my mother rather than seeing her in pain. I have really in my imagination better memories of her enjoying life and much more now in the other life.

In this regard, regrets might take a long time especially in cases to the death of someone you love and you have not been able to do something for him or her. For example, someone regretted not being able to come back earlier in time to see her father before his passing. With the current Covid-19 situation at Alert Level 3, there was a need to stay quarantined like in a hotel. In the end, she was not able to see her father alive. So it is understandable that this could have brought about a regret that "I could have come home earlier knowing that there are health protocols."

I really want to give you some tips so that you're more prepared, so that you will have less regrets or you will spend less time regretting things. But actually it's really normal as long as we live. I think only dead people have no regrets and we are living beings. Of course we can go to the cemetery and we can imagine the regrets of all the dead people thinking (we think for them) probably their regret is that they have not accomplished their dreams in their lifetime. But it's actually we living human beings feeling that, hoping to avoid perhaps that eventuality that we die also without being able to accomplish our dreams, that we die with regrets. So we reflect on death and we could spend time in the cemetery doing that much needed reflection, that much needed time to really get us out of our inertia, to really make us be more decisive, to make us to make decisions, to take action to so that we could minimize the regrets later on.

Psychologists would say there are basically two types of regret: one for what you have done or chosen or decided (action) and another for what you did not choose, you did not decide, you did not do (inaction). 

On the regret about an action, let's give an example.  You have decided to invest all of your extra income in the stocks of company B and you did not choose companies A and C. Then you found out that the stocks of company B were more profitable.  So you have regretted the outcome of your choice which is really the lost opportunity to earn that higher income for your investment. (I'm talking as an accountant here.)

Let's give a simple example of the regret: it could be a young person's inaction for not studying well enough such that while she's writing the curriculum vitae she has found that it was impossible to get a good job with her lack of achievement.

Regret over an action would last briefly and the regret over an inaction would persist longer. I could understand that if we relate it to some specific examples like failures in relationships, etc. On one's deathbed, the person could be regretting that she was not a good mother so it could have been a regret on a longer term. Others could regret not spending sufficient time with the children, not trying to save a broken relationship, not being able to apologize so that regret could persist longer.

The regret over the choice of the color of the car might just last for a short time because you you will be using the car. Somehow you could get over that regret by looking at the other cars and you might say well: This gray color is not as bad as the silver color that I wanted." So in the end as you start using the car the regret might not persist anymore.

These are my five tips on how to deal with regrets.

The first is to learn from what happened. Learn from that experience. To regret is to be disappointed, to get annoyed about what happened so let's learn from that. Go back and reflect what are the choices that you've made, how did you decide on it. It could be that you could have consulted someone like an expert before you have gotten into such a huge investment. Or you could have spent a little bit more time, like one more week to study the stock market. You could have consulted a friend who is not exactly an expert but she has more experience than you when it comes to stocks.

Somebody said that when you make a mistake once, it's okay that's a mistake. But when you have made the mistake twice then, there's already a decision. So decide right now to learn from what has happened so that later on at least you can minimize the bad consequences. Learn from and don't dwell on probably the lost opportunity, the lost income, the inability to get that greater income if you have invested in company A. That could be a waste of time. Convert that rumination into a learning opportunity. Take time to reflect on what could be improved next time. It may not be in investments as you might not have more money but it could be in other important or significant choices like another business opportunity or a career or getting into a serious relationship. You don't want again another bad decision in the sense that you could have done better.

Sometimes out of sympathy for the person suffering the regrets, we could advise her to change gear right away. I've heard this from other experts. The advice is "either you regret or you change your life." But in terms of change we have to be very particular about it. It's not total change but a little bit of change. It could be trying to come up with better with alternatives like to wait for another month to liquidate the investment or to wait until such time that you will not lose money liquidating the investment. Don't stay too much in the two options dilemma. Don't stay in: either you waste time in your regret or you change your life. It's a bit radical. I really like simple changes, little changes.

For example, I could propose a little bit more solution like dwelling on what has occurred to learn from it but not exactly changing right away. In the end of course we could suffer in the process because we could feel our annoyance. But you can take it as part of repentance. For example it could be about being able to concretize a way to meet with people that probably you need to apologize or to make up for an action. Avoiding the either-or situation and coming up with other options could make you a little bit more creative and at the same time courageous enough to really face what has happened and the negative consequences. You could review them again to find out really what actually brought them about so we know where to improve in future decision making. I'm really trying to emphasize on this because this is very important. While you might hear the advice to love yourself, to go and really forget about it, but there could be more possibility for more courage to reflect on the situation. We cannot be so fast that we don't reflect anymore. I think reflecting on it could actually be called due diligence. It's about really trying to maximize the learning opportunity in that situation.

The second tip to deal with regrets about your decision is to be more realistic and less idealistic when you dwell on what could have been. The ideal outcome could have been okay ideal because really it's the best that could ever happen but it did not happen. So what  we can do is really to think that we cannot undo it. You know only in computer while you're typing you can click here in a Mac keyboard the shortcut Control-Z. But there are things that we cannot undo, we just have to face them. Face the reality don't waste your time thinking what could have happened, what could have transpired unless of course you really want to learn from it. But then again you really have to face it. Being realistic is to consider what has happened as the reality. It's the constraint for future decision making, it's not any more an option. It's really something that you have to face. But of course you know the memory is not our best friend in this situation like we could go back to the past events and we could think that we could have chosen a better career. So we have to accept the situation, accept the present and the future decision could be better once we have become more realistic.

The third tip is to connect with your true emotions. You could actually get advice to just laugh off your mistake. It really depends if it's a big regret or a significant regret or a big mistake. It really depends on the the situation. For example if you lost a significant amount of money, people can actually doubt your mental health if you just laugh off that situation.

I regretted (not) wearing my eyeglasses and one day I was walking in a friend's house and I didn't realize that it was a glass sliding panel. I thought someone was wearing the same trousers the same color, the same slippers. I bumped my head on the glass panel. And of course I made light of it. I really just laughed and every time I every time I remember that I would be laughing. It's a small thing that happened it's really laughable. But laughing cannot apply to all situations.

The fourth tip is to love your uniqueness. Avoid taking comfort in anonymity that you are actually just one of the two million people who have regrets in their life. But in a way it can help because you might say I'm only one of two million people who have actually experienced the same regret about this particular thing. It could lighten the bad emotions as you're experiencing it. Somehow the regrets are shared with many who are in the same situation. But remember that this particular regret that you have is on your particular mistake or error, the thing that has happened to you. Actually just to get you out of that bandwagon, I tell you that you can write a whole book about it. Don't accept to be just a paragraph in a collection of two million stories about that particular regret that you have. I'm saying that you are unique, you can have your own unique learning experience from that. You have specific characteristics, nuances of that particular regrettable purchase decision that probably you share with 2 million people. But then again there could be some unique learning opportunities from that. Okay? So love your achievements at the same time love your mistakes. No one is perfect.

My last tip to deal with regrets is this: embrace your choices. Embrace your decisions. Be like the painter who signs his name on the painting. Affix your signature to your decisions without thinking if ever that will be a mistake in the future. Affix your signature always to all your actions, to all your decisions. Every decision that you make is you. It may have been a good choice, it may have been a good decision, it may have been a bad decision but still it's your decision. I would say you are your own choices. You recall that saying that you are known for the people you choose to be with. You are known for what you eat also. And now that the election is coming, you are what you choose. You are who you choose. 

The fifth tip is really my most important tip. You are your decision. Embrace your decisions.

To end, remember the basic thing is really learn from your mistakes, learn from what has happened. You can dwell in the regrets because somehow it can be a form of atonement but not too much. Don't ruminate on that and really go forward making sure that that mistake will not happen again, deciding to really improve your decisions.

I hope you learned from these five tips. I hope you learned from this training on regrets and you are forewarned that as you try to improve in your decision making you will still encounter regrets. I mean you will not be always having the best decisions, the best outcomes. It will not happen because no one is perfect. No one is a perfect decision maker. But what i can forewarn you is with these five tips, you will learn to live with regrets.