What Regret Forgot to Tell You
This post “What Regret Forgot to Tell You” is an excerpt from an article originally published in the October 2026 issue of Reclaimed Living magazine.
When I started what would become one of my favorite positions at a large organization, I felt like a child dressed up in adult clothes, sitting in adult meetings and talking about adult goals.
I wasn’t really that young at all. But if you’ve ever started a job without the right training for the role, you might understand my predicament.
In meetings, I was hesitant to contribute, or I thought I said too much. Every week I took on too much, believing that if I just tried a little harder than everyone else, I would somehow rise to the occasion.
I wasn’t bad at my job. In fact, it turned out the role fit me like a glove. But my emotions and my preparation could not keep pace with whatever intelligence or instinct I brought to the work.
It felt like everyone around me had a pedigree in high-capacity leadership, while I had led a few meetings on the side.
I was completely in over my head.
And that is the story I carried with me for decades.
Not actively as someone who had failed, but quietly as someone who wondered if she would ever grow into the same capacities as the people she stood beside each day. And over time, that silent story began to fill me with sadness and regret.
OUR STORIES HAVE CAPACITY
And one thing I can see clearly now is this: the stories we regret the most may have the greatest capacity to be transformed into wisdom.
When you and I look back, more often than not, we concentrate on what we regret or perhaps didn’t get right.
I can see my list now.
The season when I almost pushed my husband away because our communication just wasn’t working. What a failure I felt like during those months.
Or the deep disappointment of not being chosen for a role I applied for. I thought it was the perfect next step in my life, but the people making the decision didn’t see in me what I had hoped they would see.
Or the chance I had to build a strong network through one of the roles I held, only to realize in hindsight that I didn’t even understand that was something I should have been building.
And then there are the million other things I wish I had done differently, handled better, or understood sooner.
You have a list like this too, right? It’s how we remember.
OUR MEMORIES BECOME EVIDENCE
But here’s what makes it worse. When I look back, I don’t simply see a difficult season, a role I didn’t get, and an opportunity I missed. I see failure, rejection, and poor judgment.
And if I’m not careful, those moments become evidence. Evidence that I failed or that I didn’t belong. Evidence that I should have known better.
That’s what you and I so often do. We don’t stop with what we wish had been different. We turn the story into the worst possible conclusion about ourselves.
Suddenly we are not someone who failed. We are a failure. We are not someone who was overlooked. We are an outsider. We are not someone who missed something. We are a fool.
And the simplest disappointment can become a label we carry inside for years….
Read More & Subscribe:
Read the rest of the What Regret Forgot to Tell You article in the October 2026 issue of Reclaimed Living.
You can also click to subscribe to read future issues.
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