Regrets—they’re inevitable. Some people say they don’t have them. That seems hard to believe. There are so many “dumb” things that we do throughout our careers, often without thinking or knowing, that we’d like to take back.

Take stock

I bet you can think of a few things that you’d like to do over like:

Something said—I once let an F-bomb fly at an executive staff meeting. (They understood I had strong feelings, but ugh!)
Something left unsaid—I never made the time to tell one of my mentors how important he was to me. Then he moved away and I lost track of him
Actions taken—I left high school teaching and then went back to it in another state instead of making the career change I needed.
Inaction—I kept my art business going for many years when clearly it was never going to be profitable.
There are plenty of other circumstances where we make poor choices like:

Compromising or not compromising on a issue
Failing to close a good deal
Deciding to hire the wrong candidate or not hire the right one
Staying too long at a job we don’t like instead of moving on
Not accepting a career-enhancing assignment
Here’s the good news: When we have regrets, we’ve learned something. That means we can either fix what went wrong or see how not to repeat it. That’s progress…and progress is momentum.

Turn regret into remedy

Even though we don’t like to make mistakes or poor choices, we make them anyway. Some missteps have big consequences and others small. If you’re a raging perfectionist, errors turn you inside out. If you aren’t that invested in your work, errors may not bother you that much.

The degree to which we punish ourselves for our missteps has a huge effect on our ability to move our careers forward. For some people, kicking themselves is almost an art form. They:

Apologize for their error or choice every time they see the affected parties
Bring up the issue whenever a similar set of conditions is discussed
Become gun shy, not applying for new positions/promotions, saying they “aren’t ready”
Act awkwardly or clam up when topics related to their “past decision” come up
Wearing our regrets on our sleeve is purposeless. When we move on, so does everyone else. (Sometimes they move on way before we do!)

We live in a “what have you done for me lately” work world. So when you make a mess of something, clean it up, learn your lesson, and get past it.

Employees in the customer service business know that there will be plenty of customers who, at one time or another, become dissatisfied, upset, or outraged with the company. These employees know that when their “recovery” initiatives (their remedies) are strong, not only will those customers be placated, they may also become more loyal.

Implementing remedies is how you recover from your gaffs. It a simple process:

Understand what you did and why it bombed
Determine what you need to do to right the ship
Act in a timely manner to implement the fix
Follow up to make sure the remedy has worked
Make sure you don’t do a repeat
Shake it off. Move on.

Wallowing in regret is not a success strategy. Demonstrating that you are self-aware, willing to accept responsibility for your actions, courageous enough to do what it takes to correct a misstep, and focused on doing good work for the company is your strong suit. You are always the driver of your career, using your business fitness as the vehicle for success. So take your foot off your backside when you goof up and put it squarely on the accelerator! Zoom zoom!