Gemma Speck

Now, there are some regrets for which this is simply not going to make us feel better.

Nothing came from it.

You didn't learn anything.

It's made your life worse.

Sadly, that is the case sometimes.

Then it might be simply worth looking at how we can live with the facts of what happened.

One of the hardest but most important cognitive skills I think we can master, and I'm yet to master it, I'm being optimistic, I wish I could, but it's acceptance.

Accepting that this happened, regret will happen, such as the flow and intricacies of life and not having, not being able to predict the future.

You don't have to put a positive spin on it.

You don't have to turn it into an opportunity.

But you have to be willing to acknowledge that, yeah, it happened and there's nothing you can change it and you can go forward anyways.

I'm not going to ignore the fact that I don't like it.

I wish it were different.

but this is the reality that I'm facing.

As long as you are mentally replaying the past trying to get a different outcome, you stay locked in a kind of mental argument with yourself that you're never going to win and you will never be able to move forward from.

Regret in that moment just paralyzes you further.

It reduces any ability you have to change.

It's also important to note that

What's happening there in that moment where you just ruminate on everything you could have done differently is its own kind of cognitive bias.

It's called hindsight bias.