Decisions cause regret. Someone said, “If you made no decisions, you would have no regrets!” Regret can paralyze your forward motion for years.
How do you recover from a bad decision…especially one that can never be reversed? God can defeat your regret.
HERE ARE SOME STEPS I HAVE FOLLOWED TO GET IT OFF MY TRAIL:
1. Own the DECISION.
Usually, we use BLAME to deal with our regret. We find a scapegoat, a straw man we can BLAST to pieces. We argue with others who give us feedback about our own wrong decision.
OWN IT. Quit doing “self-talk.” Quit imagining fierce conversations with those you blame. They are not there and it wouldn’t change anything. Even if others contributed to the failure, own your part and determine to get better from it.
2. Stop the ANALYSIS.
Regret feels like a locomotive barreling down the track. No amount of air brakes will contain it until you take your foot off the accelerator. The “paralysis of analysis” is fueled by the word “WHY?”
If you can change it, change it. If you can’t change it, move past it. Make a decision right now: “It’s over.” “It’s done.” “I cannot drive forward by looking into the rear view mirror.”
Now, you’re talking!
3. Start to GROW.
What is the ONE lesson you could tell another person you have learned from this wrong decision? If you have isolated that, you have developed “experience.”
Albert Schweitzer said, “Experience is not the best teacher. It is the only teacher.” Make up your mind today that you will regather yourself, regroup yourself, begin reading good books, listening to podcasts, and doing personal growth.
You MUST grow your way out of regret.
4. Get back on COURSE.
God has a “plan beyond the plan.” He has a purpose beyond the pain. He can “restart your engine” and engage you in something that will go much further than your first failure.
My truck engine failed recently. It was beyond repair. I didn’t junk the truck and go visit it daily in regret! To my surprise, my insurance company paid for it! They paid for a used engine that has less miles than my other one did!
Don’t “junk” your plan. Replace the regret. Start it back up. Get back on the track of your purpose and drive it until the wheels turn square!
5. Knock down the EXCUSES.
The last one is the most important. There is always an excuse to prevent you from moving again. “What if I fail again? What if I make another bad decision? What if, what if, what if?”
Your mind will give you a thousand excuses. God’s power inside you is greater than your excuses! Excuses don’t count, He does.
Don’t ask, “WHY?” any more. Ask “WHY NOT?”
Apply these 5 simple principles. Then, share this blog with a friend along with this verse:
“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isa. 43: 18)
