Learn from them, and don’t repeat them.

There is no going back, no re-do. So you have accepted that you made the mistake. You make it up to yourself by being better now.

The fact that you consider whatever you did a mistake is a good thing. It means you’ve already learned.

like everyone is saying, you have to frame it differently. what works for me is “you either win or learn”. there’s no such thing as losing when you are smart enough to know what you did wrong so you don’t fail again.

this took months for me to finally grasp and i feel much better for it

Do better. Know in your soul you won’t hurt people again. Whatever led you down the path to the mistake that makes you feel guilty, fix it. If you weren’t paying attention, start paying attention. If you weren’t thinking of other people, start thinking of other people.

Overtime your sense of a self-identity will be able to defend yourself from those memories, yeah that was really cringy, but I’m a better person now.

I don’t, I just live with the guilt and sorrow and regret.

If you’re aware of the mistake, and what you did wrong, you’re now living with the knowledge on how to avoid making the same mistake in the future. You still exist in the here and now, and are free to continue forward in life, knowing you’re better equipped to overcome adversity than you were before.

I try to think of my past mistakes as vaccines. They may have hurt, caused me discomfort, and even make me feel regret or shame to this day, but I lived through it and it made me stronger because of it. Like a vaccine, it equipped me for something more imposing that might come up later in life. It helps me think of the silver lining- that without these mistakes, I would be much more naive, and far more prone to making an even more disastrous mistake later in life, much like how refusing a vaccine will make you more prone to a deadly disease.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

By understanding it. If I understand why I did it, and why it was a mistake, I can avoid it in the future.

Turn and burn baby!

Don’t kill the present moment by thinking about the past.

Depends on the mistakes, some things were mistakes in hindsight, i don’t feel bad about those. some mistakes are made because people lied, cheated or otherwise giving me wrong input, then I won’t feel ok, these where not really mistakes. Then there are the mistakes I my self make, I’ll try to fix them my self, sometimes other people need to clean up my mess, I’m very sorry when that happens. I apologise profusely but I also know my skills were not up to the job and I need to do better next time ( if I get the opportunity). I mostly (over)think before I do so I won’t make very obvious mistakes. occasionally I do make mistakes due to being lazy, it bites my ass and I have to solve the shit twice. and because im lazy as hell, I really really hate doing things twice.

about a third of this comment section is incredibly unhelpful by repeating that “shit happens” when you clearly just said you know that. in my case, you talk it out with someone, and either of two things can happen. you find someone who’ll help you with it, or someone who’ll shit you with it. if the latter happens, repeat. if the latter happens many times over eventually you’ll grow desensitized to it and the dread will kinda just disappeared. mind that things may work differently for everybody so maybe this will not work with you, but why not try it out.

It’s okay to feel guilty for the behavior, it’s normal, and you should learn and grow from your mistakes. It may still haunt you because you still have lessons to be learned from what happened.

Apologize, it’s not always easy but in the long run people will respect you for it. Either that or let it eat at you from the inside out for all eternity. I’ve done both, I recommend the former

I usually tell myself “Let the dead bury the dead. Who’s alive?” in loud voice, when the mistake pops up in my head. Then I look for why I’m thinking about this - am I about to do it again?

It works for me because it forces me to focus on the present.

oh there are lots of ways.

unfortunately a lot of the time, it doesn’t get any easier.

that being said, it all starts with knowing and understanding that, if you love who you are, those mistakes helped make you who you are.

personally that helped me come to peace with the fact that i had fucked up so badly.

next is atonement to yourself and others. that means learning to prevent the mistake from occurring again in the future, helping others that you recognize are making the same mistake so that they don’t have to suffer like you did, and if you hurt someone, apologizing to that person for both their and your own healings sake. sometimes it also means apologizing to yourself.

you do have to understand, though, that people change over time. our mistakes make us who we are. and you are not the same person you were when you originally made the mistake.

last and most unpleasant advice i can give is to allow the feelings to wash over you. our brain is capable of experiencing so many emotions, and each emotion serves a very important purpose. we tend to lead lives that shy away from the unpleasant emotions, but there is value to be had in experiencing them. feeling the shame of making a mistake can drive you to never make that mistake again. that’s valuable, even if it is unpleasant for a time.

signed, a guy working his ass off to be a perfect candidate for a liver transplant after a series of stupid shit decisions and drinking occurred during a divorce and a layoff.

it gets better bro.

you don’t, it stays at the back of your head and it’ll haunt you at random times.

I assume you are not asking about small mistakes of no consequence, but rather big important stuff.

When it happened to me, I kept saying that it can’t be in vain. I made a del with myself, that I need to come out the other end better than I was before. I used those negative emotions to change myself and my life in a positive way.

For example, I quit smoking, started doing sports and improved my career all bases on some pretty bad stuff that I did.

I hope you too will find a way to manage.