How to live with a bad decision?

One day an employee met his boss, a successful person who had built a large company from nothing. The employee asked him: 

– How have you managed to be so successful?

– I’ll sum it up in two words – said the boss – Good decisions.

The employee was not satisfied with such a vague answer so he asked again, willing to reveal the secret:

– And how have you been able to make the right decisions?

– I sum it up in one word: Experience.

The employee did not give in and asked again:

– How have you been able to gain that experience?

At that point the boss smiled and said – I can sum it up in two words: Bad decisions.

Let those who have never made a mistake cast the first stone. When we look back and examine our past, it is practically impossible not to find a bad decision. In fact, it is very easy to be carried away by the first impulse and make a wrong decision or simply let others decide for us. Bad decisions are part of the process of life and even bring us closer to our goal because they help us understand which path we should follow, even if it is through a process of exclusion.

However, this is merely a rational discourse. The truth is that when bad decisions break through the veil of the past and attack us without contemplation, emotions take over and the “hangover” phase arrives. It is that moment when we regret what we did, we feel guilty and we get anxious. If we are not able to turn the page and we continually ruminate on those bad decisions, we run the risk of falling into immobility and suffering uselessly, lamenting something we cannot change.

How to live with a bad decision and move on?

1. Manage the emotional avalanche

When you realize that you have made a bad decision and it has had important consequences in your life or in the lives of others, it is normal to feel bad. You can experience different emotions, from anger to sadness. However, torturing yourself or blaming yourself is as useless as an Indian dance to call for rain. Do not try to hide those emotions, but do not feed them with recriminatory thoughts. Just do not let them take over and cloud your reason. To do this, imagine that you are an external observer looking inside yourself. Discover the emotions you are experiencing, name them and do not be afraid to experience them. If you do not resist and look at them even with a little curiosity, you will see that little by little their negative effect will fade away.

2. Stop the foreign voices you hear in your mind

When we make a bad decision and we realize it, a recriminating inner thought is immediately activated. That inner voice is what stirs up emotions and intensifies them, it is what makes you feel even worse. However, the most curious thing is that often that inner voice is not ours, it is the voice of someone we have assumed is our own and who punishes us, hidden somewhere in our past. Therefore, do not stop that inner thought, on the contrary, give it free rein and listen to what it says. At some point in the speech, you are likely to discover a phrase that is not yours but belongs to someone else, who could be your parents, a teacher at school or even an ex-partner. When you unmask that alien inner voice that tries to make you feel bad, it will immediately lose its force.

3. Assess the extent of the damage

Once you have achieved a certain emotional balance, it is time to think calmly. Evaluate to what extent that bad decision has caused damage. Are the consequences as terrible as they seem or are you exaggerating? In the situation you were in and with the knowledge and experience you had, could you have made another decision? To what extent are you really responsible for the damage? It is worth clarifying that it is not about escaping your responsibilities but we often exaggerate the consequences of our actions just because we feel bad about them. Sometimes we think that we have control over everything and that the responsibility is only ours when in reality it is not like that. Therefore, when it comes to assimilating bad decisions, it is always important to look at them in perspective to be able to give them the importance they really have, neither more nor less.

4. Learn from the mistake

A bad decision is only really bad if you don’t learn from it. Therefore, analyze what steps led you to that point. Were you influenced by external factors? Were you not experienced enough? Were you too hasty in making the decision? Did you let yourself be carried away by your emotions or by your instinct and it played a trick on you? Were you afraid and let others decide for you? This exercise is not intended to blame you but to detect errors to prevent you from making them again in the future. Therefore, remember that sincerity is key and that self-sabotage mechanisms are not valid. Remember that the real error is not the bad decision but not learning from it.

5. Fix it and move on

If you can repair some of the damage caused, do so. Think about whether there is anything you can do to change what happened and its consequences. Sometimes it is not possible to undo the mistake but an apology can be enough to start healing the wounds. Other times, that bad decision has become a snowball that continues to cause problems in its wake. If so, think about the current negative effects and how to set limits. If you cannot repair the damage, do not drown in frustration, move on. Forgiving yourself is probably the most difficult step but it is essential to free yourself from that burden of guilt. Mistakes do not make you weaker, on the contrary, they make you a more resilient person but only if you are able to overcome their impact and move forward. Rescue the good, treasure the learning, and move on.