45 - Regretting the things
Because reflecting on your regrets can help you make better choices
regret
/rɪˈɡrɛt/
verb - feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that one has done or failed to do).
noun - a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has done or failed to do.
Regret is one of those feelings that is generally considered to be negative, and in a world where we are constantly encouraged to put a positive spin on everything, not many people want to be associated with a supposedly negative emotion such as regret.
I am one such person. I like to think that I have no regrets, but when I looked up the meaning of the word, I realised that it is very unlikely to participate in the human experience without feeling many regrets. I’m fairly certain that every one of us, at several points in our lives, has wondered what could have been if we had only made a different decision, chosen a different path.
This week I listened to an episode of the Dare to Lead podcast by Brene Brown. Brene is a shame and vulnerability researcher and writer who is well known from her viral TED talk on the power of vulnerability. I only discovered her when this Netflix special aired a couple of years ago and I have been a fan since. I really like how her style of motivation takes the messiness of life into consideration. Her interviews are always very humanizing.
On this episode of her podcast, she interviews Daniel Pink - another researcher/writer I’ve only recently discovered. They discuss his latest book titled The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward and their conversation has helped me to rethink how I feel about regrets.
As part of his research for the book, Daniel carried out a World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 16,000 people in 105 countries. From his research, he was able to identify four core categories of regret.
Foundation - regrets involving choosing short term gains over long term payoffs
Boldness - regrets involving failure to take an action
Moral - regrets involving going against your conscience
Connection - regrets involving breakdown of relationships
The research also showed that people had more inaction regrets i.e regrets about things they didn’t do than action regrets.
I found these results interesting - the fact that as humans, our basic failings and cravings are pretty much universal. Most of us want connection and goodness and love but some of us struggle with giving these things in order for them to come back to us.
While the word regret still doesn’t elicit any pleasant emotions, I now see the value in reflecting on things that have not gone well, trying to figure out what role I played and what I could have done differently to achieve a more desired outcome. It is possible to be saddened by an action or inaction without beating yourself up and ruminating about it endlessly and instead stepping back to analyze it and make plans to do better when faced with a similar situation in future.
“Self-disclosure relieves the burden of carrying a regret, and self-compassion reframes the regret as a human imperfection rather than an incapacitating flaw, self-distancing helps you analyze and strategize—to examine the regret dispassionately without shame or rancor and to extract from it a lesson that can guide your future behavior.” (p. 178)
Paying attention to the things that I regret has also helped me identify the main category in which I would like to improve on in order to minimise my regrets - connection.
I’d never really given any conscious thought to the value of connection until after my friend Peter died in August 2015. He was 26 years old when he died.
What followed his death was the biggest outpouring of the most beautiful life testimonies. I would find myself in a Twitter or Facebook rabbit hole of all these wonderful stories about someone who had only lived 26 years. People didn’t talk about his academic or career achievements, they talked about how he showed up for them, how he made them feel. There were funny and happy stories. Stories that told of a full life, one filled with connections to many people.
It changed my life.
I know now that I would regret my loved ones not knowing how much I love them, so I tell them.
Having lost relationships due to poor/lack of communication, I now value and make the effort to minimise pettiness and communicate properly.
I know how much happiness my random hobbies add to my life and I’m pretty sure I’d regret not discovering more.
Having missed out on valuable opportunities due to fear of not being enough, I now know to throw my hat in the ring anyway and hope for the best.
I also have no idea when this earthly contract expires so I try not to dilly-dally when it comes to the things I’d like to experience while I’m here and have full joint mobility.
The moral of the story is that regrets are a part of life and when acknowledged properly can be instructive. As powerful as regrets can be, we all still want as few of them as possible and one way to achieve this is by continuous acknowledgement and examination of our regrets.
This week I am reading
Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day by Dr Amishi Jha. She’s a neuroscientist who has dedicated her life’s work to the study of attention and I also discovered her thanks to Brene Brown. I’ve been trying to get into meditation and so reading about it’s benefits from a neuroscientist might be just what I need to get serious. Hopefully by the time I’m done reading, I shall be able to start and maintain a consistent practice.
I’ve had a good week, one that involved minimal official work and lot’s of personal productivity. I’ve also been following the outpouring of love for @bailikedubai. A necessary reminder that we may not be here for very long but we also do not have to be to make a lasting impact.
Here’s wishing you a week full of acknowledging your regrets and doing what you need to do to minimise them going forward.
Chioma.