How to Let Go of Regret

<p>You may or may not know that my jam is helping people live a life of no regrets. Literally, it’s the first thing you see on my website. It says, “live a life of no regrets” because I’ve learned that it’s one of the things I do NOT want to feel after I’ve lived my life. </p><p> </p><p>And people will often say, “How can you...even say that’s <strong>possible</strong>?” Do you really believe we can not have regrets? </p><p> </p><p>Hell yes. </p><p> </p><p>Let’s look at the definition of regret: Regret from the perspective of psychology is a negative cognitive or emotional state that involves blaming <strong>ourselves </strong>for a bad outcome, feeling a sense of loss or sorrow at what <strong>might </strong>have been, or wishing we could <strong>undo </strong>a previous choice that we made.  </p><p> </p><p>In the context of our <strong>mind </strong>and its role in our daily experience of life, regret is a feeling caused by our <strong>thoughts</strong>, just like <strong>other </strong>feelings </p><p> </p><p>And <strong>most </strong>of the time, regret is more deeply felt when it has to do with our OWN behavior. </p><p> </p><p>When it comes to relationships, studies on gender differences in regret show that 44% of women surveyed in one study had romantic regrets, versus just 19% of men. </p><p> </p><p>Studies have also found that regret is much more <strong>commonly </strong>experienced by young people in individualist cultures. People in more collectivist cultures, which deemphasize <strong>individual </strong>choice, have less of a basis for blaming <strong>themselves </strong>for negative outcomes. </p><p> </p><p>Last week I talked about how emotions are information, and regret is no exception. </p><p> </p><p>Regret was rated #1 in a list of negative emotions in fulfilling five functions: </p><ol><li>making sense of the world</li><li>avoiding future negative behaviors</li><li>gaining insight</li><li>achieving social harmony</li><li>improving ability to approach desired opportunities (presumably because we