7 action steps for no resolutions and no regrets

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
Sydney J. Harris, American journalist, 1917-1986

This time of year, rather than writing about pointless resolutions, I am tackling the topic of regrets. Unless you are engaging in schadenfreude, I don’t think you should regret anything that made you laugh. Unless you made someone else cry, or cried yourself because of something you did, I think regrets can be more damaging than helpful. Though it may actually depend on the kind of regret you are harboring.

There are three types of regret, according to a new study published in April 2018 by Shai Davidai, a psychology professor at The New School, and Thomas Gilovich, Chair of Psychology at Cornell University. The study again finds that people rarely regret what they did do, but do regret what they didn’t do.

An earlier study (1994) by Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec focused on “the temporal pattern to the experience of regret,” noting in the journal article abstract “actions cause more pain in the short-term, but inactions are regretted more in the long run.” The 2018 study focuses on how regrets play out based on whether there are discrepancies between “actual self” (who we are), “ideal self” (who we want to be) and “ought self” (who we should be, in terms of duties and responsibilities). The third category is new to me.

The classification makes intuitive sense to me. Nor does it come as a surprise to me that the study shows (72 percent) feel regret related to their ideal self as opposed to their ought self (28 percent). Or that more than three-quarters of the study participants responded they regret not taking an action that would have moved them closer to living as their ideal self. As Davidai says, “…the [ideal self] regrets are going to stick with you, because they are what you look at through the windshield of life [whereas] the [ought self] regrets are potholes on the road. Those were problems, but now they’re behind you.”

This is not to say you should overthrow all your duties and responsibilities to pursue an ideal self. I am exceptionally duty conscious (the ought self), and have often sacrificed my own personal goals and dreams (the ideal self) and been perfectly okay with it. As the authors of the 2018 study write: “A tendency to seize the moment can bring both benefits and misfortune.”

In my case, I waited until I was fifty to start my own coaching practice because as a widow with full parenting responsibility, I felt a duty to hold onto a paying job with health benefits for the sake of my two daughters. Before my daughters left for school away from the home base, I would have regretted far more sacrificing our financial security than reveling in striking out on my own. I cannot even imagine what it would have been like if I was unable to provide enough income for all of us to eat and keep a roof over our heads. Establishing the practice waited until I was only financially responsible for myself.

Instead of living a life of “what ifs” or making useless resolutions for the new year leading to more regrets, here’s a list of some action steps you can take instead if you want to move more toward your ideal self:

1. Begin, as Davadai suggests, by deciding which values are more important for you to live by: responsibility for others in your orbit, or failing to live up to the aspirations of your ideal self.
2. Be honest with yourself: According to Neal Roese, Professor of Psychology at Wienberg College, the majority of us have the most regrets around the path not taken in education (32%), career (22%), romance (15%), or developing ourselves in the creative arts (5%). Decide if the regret you feel is enough to kick you into action, or is it some amorphous desire you need to let go.
3. If you decide, for whatever reason, you cannot change your circumstances and move toward your ideal self, find a way to do the internal work to be at peace with your choice. You can do this through therapy or just reframing the choice as a reflection of your values.
4. If your values dictate a desire to move toward your aspirational self, find small actionable ways that fit with your current circumstances. Take baby steps. My ideal self desired financial independence as a solopreneur, so I experimented with running a small business by working in a very small independent bookstore. This taught me about overhead, business taxes and licensing, and how close to the bone you could run an enterprise and make enough profit to continue providing services. I did not give up my regular job while I did this.
5. Set positive, measurable goals that matter to you, then focus on the daily actions you need to take to get there. Research and find a successful example of what you want to do that rings true for you, and then emulate the steps your model took whether you want to start a business, publish a book or learn to play the piano. Dreams without action are just dreams.
6. Treat the process of moving toward your ideal self as the experiment it is. Sometimes you will find steps that tip the scales in the right direction, and sometimes you will find you need a serious course correction. Failure is part of the learning process. Children learning to walk fall down hundreds of times before they actual master taking one step after another on two feet.
7. Practice loving-kindness toward yourself and others. Choose to forgive others, and be willing to ask forgiveness when you know you have hurt someone else. Davidai and Gilovich note that action-related regrets spur reparative work, which allows us to deal with them and let them go. While you’re at it, make sure to tell the people you love right now that you love them. Not doing that is listed in the top five regrets of the dying. Speaking from experience, you never know when a loved one will be taken from you unexpectedly.

May you have a happy new year, letting go of resolutions and living without regrets!