The difference between Failure & Regret is subtle but can make the difference from having a mediocre life to a life filled with great success. One of the greatest fears in our society is the fear of failure. The next would be fear of missing out, which is closely related to regret. I find that it takes no action to initiate regret, but to fail, you must attempt. Now, if you take the road of inaction from start to finish, then, of course, you can say you didn’t have to do anything to fail. However, the truth is that you had to choose not to do anything. In today’s blog, I want to go over the difference between failure vs. regret and how not to allow either to depict your future life.

Failure tends to be one of the greatest fears people will have in life. The next fear would be public speaking, and the third would be death. Though the fear of death is more severe than failing, it is not as frequent of thought as failing. In reality, most of us will be born once and die once, according to the scientific definition. However, we are afraid to live because we live in fear of the unknown. What this causes is a failure of action and inevitable regret in the future. There is a saying; we miss every shot we don’t take. That is also true in the minutes we spend on waste.

When we choose to live life in the future, we miss what is happening in the present. We need to have a dream or vision of our future, but inaction will not get us closer to our goals. The one thing about dreaming is we can leave out any failure, difficulty, or uncertainty from the equation. We can live life in this dream world void of failure and regret, but it will not produce anything more than a mental note of what could be reality. What that means is if people continue to be fearful of failing, then the number of regrets people have can potentially increase.

If people decided to be complacent and unwilling to go after better, it would affect their many regrets. That is because if you can bury guilt, then you can avoid having to confront it. That is a habit that many people have learned to master over the years. If something is wrong and they do not want to deal with it, they can simply toss it into a corner and pay it no mind. However, not facing your problems and fears causes another issue. The issue is not failure or regret but forming a habit that allows you not to take action. That is where the loss will manifest & debilitate you from taking future steps.

When we look at failure vs. regret, we will notice that failure leaves room for change. If change can still happen, then a failure does not have to remain a failure for long. A failure can be one of the greatest lessons someone can learn in life. However, it is not a valid excuse for them to give up and quit. Since that is the case, a failure should not cause you to give up and form regrets, but that is a trend today. Knowing that this is a common trend, we must find ways to combat the norm of society and instead take the higher road. That higher road has its challenges, but it will lead to the best views you will have in your life. That is why we must learn to avoid unnecessary regrets, especially those formed from a failure that could have been a success.

Regret is defined as feeling sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity). From the definition alone, we can see there are two significant parts. The first is dealing with regret for things that have happened. For example, you may regret yelling at your child over the spilled milk at the dinner table. Yes, you may be stressed, and even though you told them countless times to be careful, the accident still occurred. Now you acting out in anger will not only make you feel worse, but it will damage the trust between you and your child. That is a regret that people have after an emotional outburst. A failure in this sense would not cause any emotional harm but would teach a lesson to all parties involved.

The second part of regret is missed opportunities. This can be a simple regret for not leaving earlier to head to work or not visiting your mother in the nursing home and getting the news that she has passed away. In most cases, regrettably, missed opportunities can be avoided. However, our habits and lifestyle will make it concerning unless we can regain focus on what matters to us. In this form of guilt, we think time is on our side. We believe we have time to do what we want or need to do and still find the time for everything we ought to do. Well, the things we ought to do typically fall to the wayside, and we blame our schedule or circumstances for not having enough time or resources to do it. The question now is to figure out how to live life with regrets you can deal with.

Perhaps you are a stockbroker, and you missed a big rush in the market because you had to take your child to school. You could curse and regret that you were on A.M. parent duty, or you could live in abundance and know another opportunity will come your way again. Now, you do not want to keep missing your boat to wealth, but there are more important things than money. You can always get more money, but you cannot get more time with your child once they grow up and move away. You can’t get more time with a loved one that has passed away. Finally, you can’t get a second chance at living once your time is finished here on Earth.

The most significant difference between Failure vs. Regret is that one offers you a second chance. Failure means you can try again. Regret opens an opportunity to do better, but the damage is already done. Regret is similar to broken trust. If you break trust, the other person has a scar from the betrayal. The scar will be there a long while before it is healed and forgotten. On the other hand, a failure is more like a bruise or scrape that will heal up in a few days. Regret is much more substantial, but we are more afraid of failure than we are of regret. If this is the case, then we have our fear priorities in the wrong order. The reason regret comes after fear is that people think they have time.

Both failure & regret are time-based. As a society, we have start dates and end dates for what you should have accomplished. That is why 65 is the age of retirement. The government wouldn’t dare have its workforce stop working at the age of 30 to enjoy life. That was one of the big factors in the worker shortage during the pandemic. People were getting paid more to stay at home than to go to work. These people were by no means wrong, they were playing & using the system. Now that we are back to normal, they might have regrets that they wasted so much time in the house on unproductive tasks. They did not fail, but time keeps on moving regardless.

In closing, one important thing you must know is that time is the constraint of regret and the ability to beat failure. This means that in order to get past regret and failure, we must put in the time for conscious work. If we can start implementing time as a factor, things such as failures will not be enough to stop progress and growth. That means people will begin to live more presently and focus on what is capable rather than the obstacle. If people continue to live in fear and excuses, then regret will be the outcome. If people live life in fear of the unknown, then failure will be the outcome. It is not only until we embrace our fear and rid our life of excuses till we learn to get past these failures and regrets people repeatedly do.

Until then,

Michael Rearden

Founder of Reven Concepts