Reframing Regret

A group of colleagues and I recently were discussing regret. As executive coaches we encounter a lot of clients getting stuck in an effort to avoid regret. I totally get this – I was a chronic regret-avoider and spent many years anxiously trying to manage myself and my family, all to dodge the painful experience of regret. I failed at this miserably. One could say I now regret trying to avoid regret. Yeesh!

In more recent years I have - mostly - come to accept regret. In doing this, I also have started to think about the possibility of reframing regret as something good, or even going so far as embracing it. Are there regrets that we might be grateful for having? Would it be completely contradictory to view regret as something positive?

My coach Sara 'Zora' Boas said “any decent human being is going to have regrets.” If this is true, then perhaps having some regret is a good thing because it is part of human development and contributes to our growth and learning. Or looking at it another way, what would learning and growing be without regret? Is it even possible? Is regret part of gaining maturity? Without regrets, can growth and maturity and wisdom happen as effectively?

Can and should we then reframe regret and view it as a critical – and dare I say positive – step on the road of life?