Have you ever had regrets in your life? Maybe yes. Unfortunately, it can prevent you from moving on with your life, especially if it’s a serious regret. Worse is, you don’t know when it starts creeping in and eventually starts crippling your life. You will keep blaming yourself for something you did wrong, or something you didn’t do. You may end up sad, stressed, and even depressed.
But that shouldn’t be the case. Everyone has regretted at one time of their lives. The fact is you are only human, and you are prone to errors. Now that you have regrets, what’s the way forward? Life must go on. Will you continue to soak in that phase? Or will you brace yourself and move forward as the hero you are. The following article covers some ways you can cope with regrets.
Identify and Address Your Weakness
You have a weakness, and that may be your main source of regret. Probably, you have a kind heart and people use that to take advantage of you. Or perhaps your main weakness is surfing the net until late day and night. You end up regretting why you aren’t productive enough. Once you identify your weakness, you have the first step to enable you cope with regret.
Use Your Mistakes as Teaching Tool
You have to identify your mistake, the source of your regrets, so what’s next? You need to forgive yourself, honey. That’s the only way to move on. When you understand this, you are bound to kick that regret bye. But what happens when you keep repeating the mistake? Don’t worry or feel guilty about this. Try with your very will power to fight, and when you can’t, just keep on fighting.
Eventually, your efforts will pay off. If you keep watching and sleeping late, how can you solve this? What measures can you put? Once you identify this, pick up yourself and rise from that situation.
Acknowledge What You Are Feeling
Don’t be in the denial stage forever. It will only make you an unhappy person, but a bitter person too. If you don’t acknowledge regretting, it would be difficult for you to cope with regret. Say why you regret doing or not doing a particular issue. Then check on ways to rectify that.
Focus On Things You Can Control
There are several situations you can’t control when it comes to regret. You shouldn’t focus on that. But instead, shift the focus to situations you can control. If you regret not loving yourself enough, what can you do to develop self-love? If the reason is that you are not working hard enough, what can you do? It’s easy to move on from issues you have control over.
Accept and move on
But what if the regret results from something you can’t control? Then acceptance is what will enable you move on. Especially if it’s a serious regret like not going from a career you want, giving birth early, investing in destructive relationships or wasting your youthful days. Acceptance is a great away to cope with regrets. The regretful event has already happened. There is nothing you can do but move on. When you are in the denial stage, it would be hard to let go.
Give Yourself Time to Heal
You’ve probably heard of the phrase time heal or wounds. It’s true. You might not come out of regret once. It’s a slow process and snapping out if it would not happen instantly. Absorb the situation and make small steps. You will eventually win.
Evaluate Your Relationships
Who are your friends? What kind of people surrounding you? Do they assist you to cope up with regrets? Or do they keep criticizing your actions and make you feel about situations you had no control over. If people around you are toxic, eliminate them. Walk with people who support you in all ways; people who advise you, encourage, you, motivate you, and love you for who you are. You need all the love and support you need to get out of this situation.
Forgive Yourself
It might be challenging to handle this situation, but forgiving you, is the first step to snap out of this situation. Make sure you do this unconditionally. You can’t avoid making mistakes as a human. And everybody makes them. Don’t be too hard on yourself. The least you should do is to be kind to yourself.
Believe in your capacity to grow
There is always a chance to make things better. And hence the more reason not to dwell on the denial stage. Doing something wrong once or twice doesn’t determine your fate as a human being. There is always a chance to rectify and change the situation for the better.
Write a Letter Yourself
Yes, writing a letter enables you to accept you are human enough to make mistakes. State that in your letter. Tell yourself all the good things you are capable of as a human. Include word of affirmation to yourself. Tell yourself, you are kind, bold, courageous, forgiving or beautiful—talk of everything charming about you. You are. You should know that your path doesn’t define your future. With such sweet words to yourself, you can easily handle or cope with regrets even later in your life.
When it comes to coping with regrets, there is no perfect formula. What works for you wouldn’t work for someone else. You are human, and you won’t evade having regrets sometimes. But, the least you can do is to learn how to control the situation.