5 Ways to Let Go of Regrets and Embrace the New

We can regard several emotions as universal, and “regret” is one of them. We experience regret when the result of a decision falls short of our desire. The feeling of regret can lead to more damage if we don’t deal with it early enough.

How do you let go of regrets and embrace the new? There are several ways to deal with regret, and we will share a few of them in this post.

Ways to Let Go of Regrets

As humans, we cannot escape experiencing regret at different times of our existence. While regret comes in different magnitudes, how we deal with regret matters a lot. Below are five ways to let go of regrets and embrace the new:

Acknowledge how you feel

How you feel depends on your initial expectations about the outcome of your decision. It is normal to stay in denial of your feelings when you experience regret. However, denying your feelings does you more harm than good.

If you can acknowledge your feelings, it becomes possible to develop strategies to numb the pain. It also helps you come up with ways to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. You should find the exact emotion that you feel and express it in the most transparent way possible. If you can, speak to a friend, close confidant, or counselor about it.

Don’t obsess about your mistakes

When we regret, we are suffering the results of taking a wrong step or making a bad choice. Because of this, we get to beat ourselves up for our frailties instead of learning from our mistakes. 

Obsessing about past mistakes hampers your reasoning ability putting you at risk of making similar mistakes in the nearest future. Asides from this, it puts you in a state of anger with yourself such that you are stuck with a bad feeling. Instead of judging yourself for your mistakes, dust yourself up and get back on your horse. Doing this helps you to move on faster and with more ease.

Draw lessons from the situation

When people say that they don’t regret a wrong decision, they are in a state of deep denial. Staying in that state doesn’t allow you to draw any positives from the situation. As we have mentioned above, you need to acknowledge your feelings and avoid obsessing about your mistakes.

When you do both, your eyes and mind become more open and receptive to lessons from the situation. The more you view the problem with this mindset, the easier it becomes to draw lessons. 

Write these lessons down and brood over them in your spare time. They will help you to devise the best strategies to avoid similar situations in the future. You may even need to set new goals after reading through these lessons. An excellent way to begin is to ask yourself what you are gaining from the emotions that you feel.

Forgive yourself

One luxury that we don’t have as humans is “turning back the hands of time.” If we could reverse time and change our decisions, every one of us would do it without hesitation. Maybe that’s part of the beauty of our existence, as learning from our mistakes makes us better people.

If you set standards for yourself and have fallen short of those standards, regret sets in. The same occurs when you make a decision that presents you with poor results. 

It would help if you forgave yourself when you are in such a situation. Of course, there isn’t a special magic potion that will make you feel okay immediately. However, you must bring yourself to the point where you forgive yourself for your mistake. Most times, when we stick to such guilt, everyone else has moved on except us. 

Make amends where necessary

Forgiving yourself should bring you some peace, but that’s not sufficient to get past the regret. To move on, you must be ready to make amends where necessary. Your poor decisions may have hurt some other people. If that is the case, the right thing to do is apologize and find ways to fix the mistake. 

Note that when making amends, you may not always need to reach out. Weigh the options and seek someone’s opinion before reaching out. Sometimes, you may need to wait a while before reaching out. Figure it out and do the needful at the appropriate time.

Conclusion

When you experience regret, don’t meditate on it and keep beating yourself up. It is time to pick yourself up and get your head back in the game. We have shown you a few things that you can do in this post. Meanwhile, please check out GodKulture for other articles on how to improve as a Christian creative.