Today, I am going to show you how to drastically improve your decision-making by leveraging the power of open opportunities and preventing regret about past actions (or inaction) and future choices.

By harnessing the power of opportunity, you experience less regret; even if you feel regret, it's less intense. This helps you unload a heavy emotional burden and paves the way toward growth.

Unfortunately, most people today waste time and energy by constantly complaining about their actions (while they can make amends if they want to) and relentlessly regretting their dreams they didn't pursue and the paths they chose not to follow.

They feel helpless, even desperate, because they struggle to achieve psychological closure.

Especially as a solopreneur, you must constantly make choices and decisions. This increases the possibility of poor choices or wrong decisions that lead to regret.

Going around in circles is very common (both among solopreneurs and the general population). People get stuck in never-ending loops of regret and negativity, ruminating about the past, reinforcing negative thought patterns and fueling inaction.

I am going to guide you through a process to help you change your mindset and perceive opportunities in a fresh, positive and productive way.

I want to spark hope and help you leverage its power to take ownership of your life and work without regret.

Hope is not merely an antidote to despair. It's what drives people to envision and pursue a better future.

It is essential to understand the background of regret, how it works, and how it influences one's perspective of opportunities in life, work, and business.

Regret is a universal and deeply human emotion. You shouldn't suppress it or beat yourself up for it. It's normal and healthy to reflect on your actions or inaction and assess how well you do (or don't). That can lead to greater awareness, an essential condition for growth.

However, you can decrease the intensity of regret, gradually eliminate it, and prevent relapse.

Understanding these dynamics can help you make more thoughtful decisions and choices, prioritise action (over overthinking and inaction), and focus on what you can improve to bring positive change to your life and work.

What do people regret the most?

Research has identified clear patterns in what people tend to regret most often and intensely throughout their lives: education, career and relationships.

If we could rank those action/inaction and emotion combinations, these would be the more intense life regrets:

1. Not living authentically but according to others' expectations, societal norms, and socially enforced life scripts.

2. Overworking at the expense of life experiences.

3. Neglecting relationships with loved ones (spouse, family, friends).

I am sure those resonate a lot. We've all been there, wondering if our lives are on the right track.

When it comes to work, the patterns are similar. This is what most people regret:

1. Staying too long in an unsatisfying and unfulfilling job.

2. Not negotiating and achieving what they deserve (pay or promotions)

3. Failing to balance work with life, leading to burnout and missed personal milestones.

It gets more complicated, I promise. But I also promise there's a remedy further below. Stick with me and endure this momentary discomfort. You can feel the intensity of regret inside you, can't you? This awareness and understanding will help you transform your thinking and decision-making.

As a solopreneur, you have most probably already experienced these regretful situations:

1. Waiting too long to charge for your services properly, thus losing revenue and compromising your business viability.

2. Not managing lead and cashflow generation effectively (experiencing intense dry and financially challenging periods)

3. Not setting boundaries (with yourself about the limits of work and others, standing your ground).

However, not all hope is lost.

Regret has a triple nature. It's:

• a thought (while reflecting on what happened or what never came to happen)

• an emotion (how your mind interprets the thoughts above)

• an experience (managing those thoughts and emotions)

Let's reverse how you approach regret. Regret itself may be utterly uncomfortable, even intimidating, but if seen as an opportunity, it can be leveraged as a growth facilitator.

But why do we feel regret in the first place? How does it work?

Here's some science to help you understand the foundation and mechanisms of regret generation - and why reframing it is essential.

Regret arises when people compare their actual life and work outcomes to imagined alternatives (what could have been better). This is called Counterfactual Thinking, which involves mental simulations of "what could have been" if different choices and decisions had been made.

If you perceive your choices and decisions led to negative outcomes, you feel regret.

It is then processed in the brain's prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, regions associated with decision-making, error detection, and emotional regulation.

When you imagine better outcomes (than the actual ones), dopamine is released to reinforce the intensity of regret.

That can trigger stress responses (higher cortisol), especially when it involves long-term consequences or high-stake decisions.

Chronic regret is linked to rumination, anxiety, even depression.

When do people feel more intense regret?

Interestingly, people tend to regret actions more in the short term but inaction more in the longer term. This is known as the inaction effect.

Actions usually have visible and tangible consequences and, therefore, an immediate emotional impact. Thus, people can easily focus on them right after they occur and take responsibility. When people feel responsible for something, they are more likely to take corrective action, often on the spot. With time, those negative consequences can usually be resolved or mitigated.

On the other hand, inaction means lost or missed opportunities. It usually occurs in the long term, and the negative consequences are not immediately observed - usually until it's late. The options for corrective action are limited and typically require a lot of time. While the negative emotions tied to actions tend to fade with time (because people adapt or move on), it's not the same with inaction. They keep coming up stronger and stronger. People feel they betrayed themselves and their values, and tend to idealise the imagined alternatives (making regret feel even worse).

If you would keep one thing, this would be it: the "what could have been" of inaction remains open-ended and unresolved.

That's more evidence that you should always opt for action (instead of overthinking, fear and inaction).

Is regret necessarily bad?

Regret is a harmful and growth-destructing process overall.

However, here are two parameters we should acknowledge:

• When we experience regret, we can take corrective action (for example, apologise or make amends), or adjust our behaviour to avoid the same mistakes.

• When we anticipate regret, we can make more thoughtful and deliberate choices and decisions today. However, that doesn't mean avoiding all risk and playing it extra safe (that's not decision-making, that's operating in autopilot mode).

The nature of regret - Lost and Missed Opportunities VS Open Opportunities

Lost and Missed Opportunities

A lost opportunity is one that was once within reach or already secured but subsequently lost due to inaction, circumstances, or both. For example, you have a new product or service to launch but delay it due to perfectionism. Then, the competition launches something similar. That's a lost opportunity. You may close a deal with a client, but mismanagement of expectations or delivery issues may cause the other party to opt out of the agreement.

A missed opportunity is when you fail to act and seize it when it arises or when you overlook and do not take it in the first place. For example, you fail to adopt social media marketing or integrate AI into your work until it's too late, and everybody has done that (thus losing any competitive advantage). You fail to recognise the chance to act on the trend. Or, you disregard client feedback and miss the opportunity to improve or enhance your service and grow - until clients drop out.

Both are primarily based on poor decisions and inaction.

Solopreneurs (more so introverted ones) tend to regret opportunities lost or missed because they choose not to act or decide against something they assessed as non-essential or too risky.

That is painful. All those lost and missed opportunities are now closed doors. The reaction window is closed; they can't make amends or change their decisions and choices.

That leaves a deep psychological mark on them. Low psychological closure intensifies the regret. Eventually, all those opportunities and the negative thoughts around them remain unresolved and become a heavy emotional burden.

Open Opportunities

On the other hand, open opportunities provide a buffer against regret. If you believe there's still a chance to improve the circumstances or even mitigate the consequences of your actions, you are less likely to get caught in a painful regret loop.

Hope plays a crucial role. Believing that you can achieve positive outcomes in the future (by making better choices and decisions and learning from past mistakes and failures) can relieve a lot of burden. That means less intense regret or even less regret altogether.

The role of hope is to shift your focus from what is lost or missed to what can still be gained. Instead of approaching things in life and work as permanent failures, you can approach them from a more hopeful perspective as opportunities for positive change and growth.

For example, if you regret not pursuing a degree in marketing when you were younger, you may see it as a permanent failure you cannot change. Or you can approach it with hope and curiosity. What if I go to college now? What if I enrol on one of the best online marketing courses? There are still options. Some of them may be the original action you missed. Some may be refined alternatives. Either way, you have options, and having options reframes your mindset from static and fixed to one focused on growth.

Here's another example. Let's say you regret not quitting your 9-5 job when you were younger. What if you leave today? What would your options be? There's always space and time for a new job or a career turnaround, regardless of age (unless you are stuck in autopilot mode).

A last example is this. You regret not investing in sales for your one-person business. So what? Your company may struggle now, but you can still choose to educate yourself in sales and create and execute a new lead generation mechanism to trigger a more steady flow of leads and new clients. There are hundreds of lead generation courses, webinars and coaches out there. Nothing is "closed" and definite. Your slow business growth will not stay unresolved.

Hope creates a mindset that prioritises action and proactive behaviour by emphasising possibilities rather than limitations.

The psychology behind regret intensity

Regret intensity is not only influenced by the nature of the opportunity and your perspective (lost/missed or open opportunity) or your behaviour (action, mistakes and failures, or inaction) and the time scale (long-term or short-term).

It's also influenced by the three individual psychological factors below:

1. Perfectionism. If you are a perfectionist, chances are you experience more regret and with greater intensity. You set unrealistically high standards; every pitfall or achievement falling short of those standards is perceived as a failure. That triggers overthinking that fuels regret and leads to more inaction: you don't make amends or try to correct the course, or, even worse, you stay stuck in negativity loops. It's hard to reframe your mindset to accept "good enough" as a success, but once you do, your perspective changes, and you feel more confident and empowered to do even greater things. Otherwise, you remain unsatisfied and disappointed for long (while opportunities slip away).

2. Resilience. Let's face it. Regret of any kind and source is a heavy burden. What distinguishes people who get stuck from people who move forward is resilience, the ability to learn from mistakes and failures, adapt, and move forward swiftly without dwelling on thoughts, doubts, regret, and many other negative emotions that drag you down. Resilience is the capacity to get up when life puts you down. Resilient people experience less regret because they recover and move forward quickly. Non-resilient people struggle with their emotions, which drains their energy and consumes precious resources like time, attention and focus.

3. Decision-making tendencies. A lack of intentional decision-making complicates things and creates the circumstances for intense regret. If you make impulsive decisions most of the time, chances are you regret most of them because they lead to poor or negative outcomes. If you overthink and get paralysed by the need to make a decision (no matter how important or trivial), you remain stuck and fail to take action, leading to lost and missed opportunities and regret. Those are the two extremes. None serve you. Intention is all you need. A more intentional decision-making mindset can help you move on with meaningful action (induced by deliberate and thoughtful choices and decisions) and alleviate regret.

How to leverage the power of opportunity (and manage regret) with 5 proven strategies

By now, you understand the dynamics of opportunity perception. It's all about how you perceive things in life and work as lost and missed opportunities or as open invitations to change and growth.

Understanding those dynamics can help you reframe your mindset, escape autopilot mode (poor decision-making and inaction), and navigate life, work, and business with confidence and grace (instead of regret).

Here are 5 proven strategies to help you manage and "exorcise" regret for good.

1. Embrace mistakes and failures as a learning tool.

Regret is a universal emotion. It's okay to feel like that. To feel stronger, you need to change how you view regret. If you see regret (and what caused it) as a permanent failure, you limit your options, become narrow-minded, and drown in negativity. You can gain a lot more if you approach them as learning experiences. It's okay to feel regret, and it's also okay to make mistakes and fail. Extract the valuable lessons from those experiences, integrate them into your thinking and decision-making, and move forward.

2. Prioritise action.

Effort is valued more than perfection. Instead of drowning in negative thoughts, take calculated risks and action. To prevent future regret, act on the opportunities that arise without too much hesitation. Ask yourself, "Would I regret not taking on the opportunity today? Will this opportunity come again, or is it a one-off chance of going for it?". Not every opportunity you seize will lead to success. Many will fail, but that's normal. Turn those experiences into learning. That is much more productive and positive than dealing with future regrets.

3. Infuse intention.

Intention is more important than goals. Goals are about future destinations. They can guide you through your journey but can't help you enjoy it. Setting the right intentions enables you to break down the journey into smaller, more manageable, enjoyable micro-journeys, even in the face of adversity and struggle. Intention goes hand in hand with hope. You make thoughtful choices and decisions and take meaningful action with the prospect of achieving positive outcomes towards your goals. That's a smart way to alleviate despair and helplessness triggered by adversity, failure and constant change.

4. Practice self-compassion.

Understand and acknowledge your efforts during difficult times (even when you seem to fail) and treat yourself with kindness. Don't beat yourself up for regret or what caused it (inaction, lost opportunities, perfectionism). You are a human and can still do pretty well despite the setbacks (which are an integrated part of life and business). Everyone makes mistakes and fails. Mistakes and failures don't define who you are or your worth. They are just events, not facts or beliefs. Build resilience to recover quickly and move on with grace.

5. Share your struggles and seek support.

Most of the time, we drown in our thoughts and regrets, believing we are the only ones going through the same thing and that we are the only ones on this planet who fail in life and work. That's a false belief and assumption. Most people go through the same. Sharing your stories and regrets with people you trust or a mentor can provide not only valuable perspectives but also emotional support. Others may not even perceive what you perceive as failure and regret as such. They can give you advice or at least a fresh perspective that all is not as bad as it seems or as you perceive it.

Here’s a recap of the strategies.

What’s next?

It’s all about mindset and strategy. As ancient Greek and Roman philosophers taught, we can only control our minds, thoughts, and actions. Focusing on this can help you avoid unnecessary struggle, get unstuck, and move forward faster.

If you need guidance getting unstuck and making crucial mindset shifts, I can help, especially if

• you are a currently struggling introverted solopreneur (stuck in regret and a flawed mindset that doesn’t serve you)

• you want to quit your 9-5 job and create your one-person business, but you struggle to pivot (and then regret not making the leap)

DM me on LinkedIn, and let’s explore how Mindset Coaching can help you move forward and claim what you desire and deserve for a life with purpose, meaning and enjoyment.

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