Regret Is A Powerful Teacher (If You Use it the Right Way)
Embracing regret can improve performance. Take it from Nathan Chen and Daniel Pink.
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“Deep down I was like, ‘Oh, man, I’m just dreading this experience. I am not looking forward to this. This is terrifying.’”
That’s how U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen described his feelings upon being named to the 2018 Olympic team. And so, how did it go four years ago?
“Terrible, honestly,” he said in an NBC segment last week. “Ya know, I have three elements you can attempt in the short program, and I messed all three up.”
But failure also seemed to free him. Out of medal contention, and with the free skate still to come:
“I was like, ‘Screw it, I’m going to do the best I can. If I fall on every single jump, I fall on every single jump'.”
With that attitude, he blew the long program out of the water, becoming the first skater ever to land six quads in a single program.
GOOD REGRET
I’ve been thinking about Chen while reading Daniel Pink’s new book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.
In articles on Chen, the topic of regret comes up regularly, since he is often asked about 2018. “I don’t regret anything,” he said in one article last week. Pressed on it, though, he admitted that he did regret 2018. Specifically, he regretted that he wasn’t able to enjoy the experience, and didn’t have fond memories of it.
I know that “no regrets” reflex well. I vividly remember telling a friend that I had no regrets about a relationship that went disastrously wrong. Now, many years removed from it, I realize that of course I had regrets; I could’ve handled things better. Professionally, I have regrets about stories I didn’t write, and pieces of writing that could’ve been done differently, and better. I've made two corrections in my book, Range, since it came out in 2019, and while they're small enough that readers won't notice, I really regret not catching them earlier. In sports, I went from walk-on to part of a university-record relay team in college track, but regret that I didn’t learn until the very end of my career how to modulate my intensity over the course of a season, so that at the end of the year I could be sharp and hungry rather than ragged and exhausted.
Regret regret regret. And yet, what is my first reflex when I think about these things? “No regrets!” It’s obviously not true. But as Pink shows in The Power of Regret, it’s a very human reflex. (And a very popular tattoo.)
I think the reality is that, far from not having regrets, I just feel like I’ve learned so much from them. That seems like Nathan Chen’s story too.
Here he is on NBC, describing a lesson from his 2018 stumbles:
“A big portion of preparing yourself is not just pushing yourself forward but also pulling yourself back. I just had my foot on the gas pedal the whole year.”
Sounds just like the lesson I learned at the very end of my track career. And so, after the 2018 Games, what did Chen do with that lesson?
“I had my sights set on 2022, but I did want to find a way to incorporate skating and school together.”
He started college at Yale, which he says gave him perspective, and a new appreciation for how lucky he is to get to travel the world doing something he loves.
Rather than devastation, a missed opportunity led to productive reassessment. Chen, again:
“Since the last Olympics, my sights were definitely set on coming up with a plan to try to put myself in the best position to be competitive and strong and healthy, both physically and mentally. And that’s definitely a result of, ya know, screwing up at the Olympics.”
REGRET IS A POWERFUL TEACHER
Pink identifies three main benefits from regret research:
Improved decisions. (Ex: negotiators who regret that their opening offer was accepted make better choices in future negotiations)
Improved performance. (Ex: puzzle solvers and card players who felt regret drew more lessons and were subsequently more persistent)
Deepened meaning. (Ex: personal “reviews” focused on regret can lead to revised life goals, and greater sense of purpose)
It seems to me that Nathan Chen (who has dominated since 2018) probably tapped into all three of these benefits. From the Washington Post:
“At the end of the day, you know, I’m doing this sport because I love it and not because I have to win. And, of course, that’s my goal as an athlete. I want to say, ‘Well, I want to have opportunities to win,’ but I really do it because I enjoy what I do.
I think when you have that perspective, it really allows you to switch away from the narrative of being like, ‘Oh my God, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’ I think continuing to have that perspective just generally makes me more at ease with what I do and allows me to do whatever I do on the ice without regret.”
Last Wednesday, Chen won the gold medal. I wrote most of this post, though, before that.
I absolutely loved watching Chen’s performance, as he nailed quad after quad. His shirt made me think of a rotating galaxy. (Astronomy minor ✋.)
But irrespective of his performance, Chen combined with Dan Pink’s new book to leave me with an enduring lesson from these Games: regret isn’t just something to push away, but rather something to embrace. It can be our most powerful teacher.
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Lastly, on Friday I'll be talking live with Dan Pink about The Power of Regret. (Dan is extremely interesting and witty, and I tore through the book.) The virtual event is free, and you can join us here. Until next week…
David
P.S. The cover photo for this post is by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images.