Ep 127: Get Unstuck with 3 Simple Questions to Let Go of Regret

If you’ve ever felt a feeling of regret about something (haven’t we all?), this is the episode for you. In this episode, I’m talking about my 3 favorite questions to turn regret into a tool for growth and moving forward. 

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why we often get stuck in regret and why it’s not helpful
• My favorite 3 questions for reframing regret into a tool for growth and forward motions
• How to make peace with your past

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Resources:

You can download my free "Reframing Regret" worksheet HERE!

Transcript

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Hey there, and welcome back to Real Brave and Unstoppable. I'm Courtney, and today we're talking about something I know we have all dealt with at some point, regret. So maybe it is that thing you wish you would have said, or the thing you wish you hadn't said. Maybe you made a decision that you wish you wouldn't have made. And now you're catching yourself playing the what if game in your head. What if I would have did this instead? What if I would have, or I should have. I should have known this. I should have known that. I should have done this different. Sound familiar? Yeah, well, here's the thing. Having regret like that is totally normal We all experience it. But staying stuck in regret like really that's let's be honest that's not helping anyone, right? Regret can actually hold us back from growth and it keeps us in negative thought loops and really it kind of just keeps us feeling like crap. So today I want to share a super simple but powerful way to move through regret and actually use it as a tool for growth. What? Yes, growth. of spiraling in guilt or frustration, I'm going to walk you through my three favorite questions that will help you reframe any regret and come out stronger on the other side. It's a game changer. By the way, this is a big part of the mind pillar of my three part approach to wellness, body, mind, spirit, because the way we think about and process our past directly impacts how we move forward in life. So grab your coffee, your tea, get comfy, and let's talk about how to stop letting regret weigh you down. You ready? All right, let's go. Before we dive into how to actually move through those feelings of regret, let's talk about what it really is and why it is so hard to let go of sometimes. Regret is basically that feeling of wishing you had done something differently. It's our brain looking back and saying, Ugh, I should have handled that better. I should have made a different choice. I should have spoken up. I should have walked away sooner. And so on and so on. It's so easy to get caught up in that loop, like just replaying past situations over and over. I was just talking to someone about this the other day I was coaching her and she was like, why, why do I always like replay this over and over in my head? It's almost like we think we can rewrite history if we analyze it, enough. Have you ever done that? I mean, I totally have done that a lot of times too, and it's really not helpful at all. But here's the thing. The problem is not actually The feeling of regret. It's staying stuck in it. That is, that's the problem with a lot of emotions. Emotions themselves are, or feelings themselves are not things to be fixed. They're just, they just are. They're neutral. They're energy. They need us to let them do their thing. It's the getting stuck. And why do we get stuck? There are a few reasons for that. The first thing is, our brains just grapple with uncertainty. Like, our brains hate it. Regret makes us look at something and feel like we should have known better. Our brains hate that, but the thing is like we didn't know better and we, there's no way we could have known better because we only had the information that was available to us at the time. We made the best choice that we could at the time with what we knew. Hindsight is always 20, 20, right? We can never know now. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So if I make a decision about something tomorrow, I'm only able to make the decision based on what I know right now But our brains do not like that. When we get to the tomorrow and we realize that we made a decision we don't like it really wants to be able to say this is why we screwed up. So we know what to do moving forward The second way we get stuck is that we think beating up ourselves for it. will fix it. Sometimes we hold on to regret because we think it will somehow make up for what happened. But, like, as you can imagine, guilt doesn't really undo the past. It just weighs us down, like, right now. When I ask clients if there's a reason they're afraid to let go of some of these thoughts about, I wish I would have done this, or I should have done this differently, like, what if you didn't have those thoughts?, nine times out of 10, they tell me that if they don't think that, if they're not hard on themselves about it, then they won't actually get better or they won't fix it in the future. So like, it's this way of motivating themselves from this place of fear. It's not super effective. And research has actually shown this. I probably should have looked up the actual studies and stuff. I did not, but research has shown this, just trust me. It's like the difference though, between one of those hard ass really critical coaches, like if you played sports growing up, you know that, you know, the one. And then like a helpful, encouraging mentor, like the ones that yell all the time, they just like, I mean, maybe they are motivating in some way, but you know, I'm not feeling great. But then the the encouraging ones like they'll point out like what you're doing well, also. They'll they'll give you feedback on what you're doing wrong and they might get frustrated with you, but they're also gonna share with you what's going well and what you're doing, right? Cuz that's the way to help someone grow. Because then they know what they're doing right, they can build.On it, and the things that they're not doing as well, they can work on improving it. It's that idea of support that I think is so powerful. The third way we get stuck is that we tie regret to our identity. So instead of seeing something as a lesson, we make it personal. So, like, I messed up, so that means I'm a failure. Nope. A mistake is just something you did. It's not who you are. So let's talk about how this actually impacts us if we don't let the regret go. When we hold on to regret, it doesn't just stay in our heads. It affects us. It's all of us, our whole being, those three pillars. So in our mind, regret keeps us stuck in a negative thought loop. And that leads to stress and anxiety and self doubt. Remember our thoughts create our feelings. So this is that little voice that whispers, you screwed up. You're not good enough. What if you do it again? But the truth really is that regret does not predict your future unless you let it predict your future. So like I said before, our thoughts create feelings and feelings can drive action. So if we're stuck in negative thinking about how much we suck, we're gonna feel crappy and great things don't usually come from feeling crappy. Think about it. In our body, regret can literally manifest in physical ways. Stress from regret can impact your sleep, your energy levels, it can even create tension in our muscles. If you've ever felt that pit in your stomach when you dwell on something you wish you could change, that's your body responding to your thoughts. Finding ways to move through feelings of regret effectively is really taking care of your physical health too. And then that third pillar of spirit, which I talked about last time on the podcast, regret can really disconnect us from who we truly are and the life we were really put on this planet to live, our purpose. It can make us feel stuck in the past instead of moving forward with confidence and really like aliveness. And it can also lead to shame, which really shuts us down instead of helping us grow. Which is what we, most of us really ultimately want.

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So, if regret is taking up mental, physical, and emotional space, what can we do about it? That's where my simple three question framework comes in. I love this so much, you guys. And trust me, it changes everything. So let's get into it. This three question framework is, like I said, it's simple, but it's powerful because it helps you shift from rumination, like being stuck in those thoughts, to reflection. Instead of spinning in circles over what you wish had happened, you can use regret as almost like a stepping stone to learn and grow and make different choices next time. So here's how it works. The next time you catch yourself stuck in regret or really ruminating on what you wish you would have done different, and you can't get that out of your head, you keep going back to it and replaying the stuff in your head over and over again, just pause and take a breath, and ask yourself these three questions: the first question is, what worked? This one might feel a little counterintuitive because when we think about regret we tend to focus on everything we did wrong. But even in a situation that you regret or wish you would have done differently there's something that went right? I promise you there's something. I mean We've all had those times where we feel like everything just blew up and went wrong and it was a disaster. But generally that's not the case humans tend to look at things in very all or nothing terms. It's just kind of You know, the way we're wired. So this is encouraging you to get a little, little more, uh, gray area about it. So maybe you didn't handle a conversation the way you wanted to, for example, but at least you were honest. Or maybe you stayed in a relationship too long, but you learned about what you don't want next time. And maybe you regret how you treated your body in the past. But guess what? You're here. You're aware of it now, and that means that you are already ahead of where you were before. So, start with that. Identify one thing that worked, even if it's really small. Because finding anything positive in the situation reminds you that you're not powerless, and it also starts to train your brain to look at what went right, or what's good, or what's positive first. Because we don't typically operate that way. And it's really helpful in working with like a growth mindset to be and to do that, to think that way. So the second question is, what didn't work? So this is kind of what we think of as maybe the obvious question here. But now we've acknowledged what worked, but, and this is where we get honest. But listen, I need you to do this without judgment. I'm to repeat that I need you to do this without judgment. This isn't about beating yourself up. It's about recognizing where things went sideways so you can do better next time. You're gonna learn from it. So what didn't work? Did you ignore your gut feeling? Did fear stop you from speaking up? Did you let perfectionism keep you from taking action? Maybe you spoke up too much. This is just about gathering information. Okay, you're not bad for making mistakes. You're totally human. Congratulations. And when, once you see what didn't work, like that's when you can do something about it. So the third question is what can I do differently next time? This is the most important step because this shifts you from that stuck mode to solution mode. So based on what you just realized with those, those other two questions, those first two questions, what will you do differently moving forward? Okay, so maybe you'll set boundaries sooner. Maybe you'll trust yourself more. Maybe you'll take action before fear talks you out of it. Or maybe you'll take a pause before reacting to something someone said. And this step is really empowering because it turns regret into a tool for change instead of something that just weighs you down. And the best part is that you don't have to wait for some big old huge situation to practice this. You can use these three questions for any regret, big or small. Over time, this is going to rewire your mindset to be more forward focused. Instead of obsessed with the past and I actually encourage you to do that like practice with it take something small You know like last week on Tuesday, I was exhausted all day I wish I would have gone to bed sooner. That's actually a real situation, by the way. Sometimes I have a hard time putting down my New York Times, uh, crossword app at night. Do as I say, not as I do, right? But, you know, I might look at that and say, what worked? I have a great little time with my daughter every night. We do all the games. We do the, um, game called, uh, what's it called? Strands. It's a new one. Connections. We do wordle, we do the spelling bee, and then usually she goes to bed either part way through the spelling bee or after it. And then I do the crossword, but I get, I can get kind of sucked in. I have a hard time putting it down. So, you know, that's something good about it. What worked is I had that time with her. I love that time What didn't work? Well, like, you know I didn't have anything in place to really remind me why it's important to go to bed at the time I want to go to bed What can I do differently next time?

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Well, you know, maybe I need to set an alarm and have a message, associate a message with it, you know, on the iPhone, probably on the Android too, I don't, I don't know, but you can name the alarm something. So when it pops up, it'll give you the message that you name it. Um, so maybe I do that and I say, well, it's important for you to go to bed because tomorrow, otherwise you're going to be exhausted and you're going to be mad at yourself for not going to bed. And you won't be able to enjoy the, the things you want to enjoy. You'll have like not very much energy and you know, go make some notes about why it's really important to you to, to do the thing.

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But you get the idea, like I'm, I'm really looking at what went right, what didn't go right and then what might I want to do to be able to do this in a way that works better for me next time. So, let's recap real quick When you find yourself stuck in regret, you're going to pause and you're going to ask yourself, What worked? Find something positive. You can use this and then next time you can build on it. And then two, what didn't work? Without judgment. You're just observing. Number three, what can I do differently next time? You're turning this into a lesson, not a life sentence, okay? Regret doesn't have to be this heavy thing and that drags you down It can actually be one of your greatest teachers if you let it. And actually, I find that in life like some of the hardest times of my life I wouldn't wanna really experience them again, but yet they were like my greatest teachers. There are some people in my life that are, have been very difficult for me, and they're my greatest teachers, some of my greatest teachers. So let's take a deep breath, let go of the past and then decide what you wanna do next. now you have this simple powerful tool to move through regret instead of getting stuck in it, but I also know this to be true: Sometimes even when we've asked the questions, Reflected and made a plan to do better, there's either still a part of us that holds on to that regret, or maybe like we just don't quite get it right next time either, and then we're back in the same place. But as far as a part of us still holding on to regret, that's because regret isn't just about wishing we've done something differently. It's about almost like grieving the version of ourselves that didn't know what we know now. You know, we only know what we know, duh, but we can't ever know all the information that will be available to us when the decision plays out. If that makes sense when we know when we realize it was a good or bad decision. But we don't have the information of the future So let's talk about how to really make peace with the past and move forward in a way that feels light instead of heavy.

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First of all, recognize you did the best you could. One of the biggest reasons that we hold on to regret is because we believe we should have known better. But the truth? You didn't know better. You made the best decision you could with the knowledge, experience, and emotional capacity that you had at the time. In hindsight, like I said before, it's always 20/20. You're looking at the past with the wisdom of today. And of course, things seem clearer now. But back then, like you just didn't have that clarity yet. That's okay. It's normal. So instead of blaming yourself for what you didn't know, like, just take a minute and acknowledge how far you've come. Like, you know something different now. The fact that you even feel regret means that you've grown. The second thing is self- forgiveness. This is the key to letting go. If you've been holding on to regret for a long time, ask yourself, like, what would it feel like to just let it go? Kind of like you're letting go of a balloon. I know we don't do that anymore because it's not environmentally friendly, but if it were, imagine you're just letting go of a balloon, just releasing it, just floating away. And it's not because you're ignoring what happened. It's not because you're pretending it didn't matter. It's because you deserve to move forward. Regret is just your brain's way of saying, Hey, I care about this. I want to do better. But if you hold on for too long, it just stops being helpful, and it really starts being harmful. And we don't want that. So here's something I want you to try. Close your eyes for a second, and take a deep breath. If you're driving, don't close your eyes. Hopefully it goes without saying. And repeat after me. I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, I released myself from the weight of this regret and you might even imagine a weight being lifted off of you and I will take what I've learned and move forward from this with wisdom and grace. One thing people don't think about is that self forgiveness is a choice. Self compassion is a choice. And when you give yourself permission to let go, you create space for something new. You create space for growth, for healing, for peace.

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The third thing is living in the present and not the past.

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At the end of the day, regret tries to keep us trapped in the past. But that's not where your power is. There's nothing you can do about the past. It's totally out of your control. It's done. But your power is here right now in the present because it's here that you can actually control something. You can actually do something.

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So right now, today, you have the opportunity to make new choices to take what you've learned and to apply it.

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You have the choice to live in a way that aligns with who you are now, not who you used to be. So ask yourself what you want to create in your life moving forward. What's something small that you can do to step towards that today?

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That's where your focus should be. Not in the rearview mirror. That's not where you're going. What's that quote? Like, don't look back. That's not where you're going. Look ahead. You gotta look ahead to be able to stay on the road. Right? So, look where you're going. See where you want to go? Zero in on that. Move towards that. Before we go, I have a challenge for you. Something that you can do to apply what we've talked about today. Because I don't want you to just listen to this episode. I want you to do something with it. So here's your challenge. Number one, think of a regret you've been holding on to. It doesn't need to be some giant thing that you regret. It can be something small. In fact, it's probably better to start with something small. It might be easier to work with for now. Second, you're going to write it down and you're going to walk through the three question framework I talked about today. First, what worked? Second, what didn't work? Third, what can I do differently next time? Now take a deep breath and let it go. Imagine letting it go. And then. Think about what's one small step you can do today to move forward. Maybe it's making a different choice. Maybe it's forgiving yourself. Maybe it's offering some self compassion. Maybe it's simply deciding to stop replaying the past. Redirect that energy somewhere else. And if you're feeling bold or inspired, send me a message or tag me on Instagram and let me know what you're releasing today. I would absolutely love to cheer you on. And also something really cool I created just for you as a thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you for being in my life and doing this work on yourself. I've created a little worksheet that you can use to go through this three question framework and you can grab it for free at the link in the show notes So go ahead and click on that. You just have to put your name and email address in so I know where to send it and It'll make it really easy for you to do this challenge today Remember you are not your past mistakes. Today You are the person who has learned from them. And that's my friend. That is what makes you unstoppable! All right, my friend, that is it for today. If this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear your thoughts. DM me, send me an email or share this with someone who really might need to hear it. I always love it when people go leave a rating and a review on your favorite streaming platform. It helps people find the show, which is what we want. And if you're ready to start making real lasting changes in your life, you know where to find me, please reach out. All right, until next time, take care and remember regret does not define you. Your next choice does.