The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward(41)

Still, if you’re squeamish about what others think of you, you needn’t disclose your regret to anybody but yourself. The pathbreaking work of social psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas, begun in the 1990s and expanded by him and other scholars for the last thirty years, has shown that merely writing about emotional difficulties, even solely for your own consumption, can be powerful. Among the benefits: fewer visits to physicians, long-term improvements in mood, strengthened immune function, better grades for students, finding jobs more quickly for the unemployed, and more.[10] In addition, Pennebaker has determined that these benefits extend widely: “The disclosure phenomenon appears to generalize across settings, many individual difference factors, and several Western cultures, and is independent of social feedback.”[11]

The initial step in dealing with all forms of regret is to disclose the regret. Cheryl Johnson has done that—first by completing the World Regret Survey, and then by talking with me about the strong friendship she had failed to maintain. In our conversation, she told me that she’d never told anyone the full tale of her experience and that brought a moment of clarity and a measure of relief.

Self-disclosure is intrinsically rewarding and extrinsically valuable. It can lighten our burden, make abstract negative emotions more concrete, and build affiliation. So, to begin to harness your regrets to improve in the future, try any of the following:

         Write about your regret for fifteen minutes for three consecutive days.





         Talk about your regret into a voice recorder for fifteen minutes for three consecutive days.



     Tell someone else about the regret in person or by phone. Include sufficient detail about what happened, but establish a time limit (perhaps a half hour) to avoid the possibilities of repetition and brooding.





STEP 2. SELF-COMPASSION: NORMALIZE AND NEUTRALIZE


After you disclose your regret, you are exposed—to yourself and others. And once exposed, you face a choice about how to respond. Do you dress yourself down? Or do you pump yourself up? Which is more effective—initiating a round of self-criticism or tapping your reserves of self-esteem?

The answer, it turns out, is neither.

As someone with an unbending commitment to self-criticism as well as a lifetime spent honing the technique, I was surprised when I went looking for evidence of its effectiveness. There isn’t much. Self-criticism can sometimes motivate our performance when we criticize ourselves for particular actions rather than for deep-seated tendencies. But unless carefully managed and contained, self-criticism can become a form of inner-directed virtue signaling. It projects toughness and ambition, but often leads to rumination and hopelessness instead of productive action.[12]

Its opposite, self-esteem, can be more effective. Highly prized in certain parenting and education circles, where praise gushes and participation trophies gleam, self-esteem measures how much you value yourself. How good do you feel about who you are? How favorably do you evaluate your traits and behaviors? For example, in surveys, people with high self-esteem award themselves top marks for their looks, their brains, and their popularity—while people with low self-esteem make the opposite assessment. (Curiously, neither evaluation correlates with how smart, attractive, or popular someone actually is.)?[13] We all need some baseline level of self-esteem to survive today and flourish tomorrow. And efforts to boost self-esteem can lift performance and lessen depression and anxiety.

But self-esteem brings downsides. Because it offers indiscriminate affirmation unconnected to genuine accomplishment, self-esteem can foster narcissism, diminish empathy, and stoke aggression. Criminals, for instance, have higher self-esteem than the general population. It can also promote bias toward one’s own group and prejudice toward other groups.[14] Because self-esteem is comparative, to assess myself favorably, I often must denigrate others. These defects are why some of the finest social scientists of the last fifty years—among them, Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, and the late Albert Bandura—have long explored alternatives to self-esteem.

The most powerful and promising alternative—and the second step in the regret-reckoning process—was pioneered nearly twenty years ago by University of Texas psychologist Kristin Neff. It is called “self-compassion.”

Self-compassion emerged in part from Neff’s recognition that when we stumble or fail, we treat ourselves more harshly than we would ever treat friends, family, or even strangers in the same predicament. That’s counterproductive, she has shown. Rather than belittling or berating ourselves during moments of frustration and failure, we’re better off extending ourselves the same warmth and understanding we’d offer another person. Self-compassion begins by replacing searing judgment with basic kindness. It doesn’t ignore our screwups or neglect our weaknesses. It simply recognizes that “being imperfect, making mistakes, and encountering life difficulties is part of the shared human experience.”[15] By normalizing negative experiences, we neutralize them. Self-compassion encourages us to take the middle road in handling negative emotions—not suppressing them, but not exaggerating or overidentifying with them either.

Self-compassion is also something that people can learn.[16] And when they master it, the benefits are considerable. Research by Neff and others has found that self-compassion is associated with increased optimism, happiness, curiosity, and wisdom;[17] enhanced personal initiative and emotional intelligence;[18] greater mental toughness;[19] and deeper social connections.[20] It can protect against unproductive mind-wandering,[21] and help students cope with academic failure.[22] It also correlates with less depression, anxiety, stress, perfectionism, and shame[23]—and reduces symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.[24] A 2019 meta-analysis of more than ninety studies showed that self-compassion can even promote better physical health, including improved immune function.[25]