Moving Forward & Letting Go: How To Deal With Those Pesky Life Regrets

Regrets – they’re something that we all have. From wishing things had turned out differently with an ex to wishing you’d been brave enough to take that chance, regrets come in various forms.

Now, we know that having regrets is part of being human and they do serve their own purpose (they can teach us lessons, for example) but they can also be dangerous things. Regrets stop being a part of human development when they start to impede our growth. This usually happens when we dwell on them.

If you’ve ever replayed a certain situation over and over in your mind, then you’ll know how toxic regrets can be when you spend too much time thinking about them.

So how can you move on and let go of the stubborn regrets that you just can’t seem to leave behind you? Here are a few tips you can use to help you move forward with your life.

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Life is too short for regrets, so get rid of them and live it up!

Learn to focus on today: Despite what you’ve been lead to believe, you only have one life and it only exists in the here and now. Dwelling on events that happened in the past will suck all the joy out of the present for you. An easy way to bring yourself back to today is to ask yourself the following every time you find yourself thinking about regrets: “What am I doing today?” this will help to keep you focussed on the here and now. Eventually those regrets will stop surfacing in your mind.

Don’t rehash regrets with friends: When we have strong feelings about something we tend to vent in order to make sense of it. However, continually going over your regrets with your friends will just make them seem bigger (and far worse) than they actually are.

Try to find the humour in any regrets that you might have 

Accept the things you can’t change: It can be hard to accept when things haven’t gone the way the wanted them to, but you need to realise that whatever happened is in the past now and it doesnt matter how much you regret something – you cant change the past. All we can do is learn to accept it. The sooner you make peace wit this fact the easier life will become for you.

Laugh: There’s an old saying that goes along the lines of ‘laughter is the best medicine’ and this is so true. The next time you find yourself dwelling on your regrets, try and see if you can find any humour in them.  Laugh about something enough times and you’ll soon realise that humour washes out any pain associated with the memories.