At some point, we all encounter a version of ourselves that we’d rather not see. Maybe it’s a memory that surfaces uninvited—a sharp word spoken in anger, a betrayal that played out in slow motion, the realization that you were cruel when you didn’t have to be. Maybe it’s a person you run into years later, someone who still wears the scar of a mistake you made and have since tried to forget.
We like to think of ourselves as evolving creatures, constantly growing and improving, inching toward wisdom like plants straining toward the sun. But the past is a stubborn thing. It does not always grant us the luxury of reinvention. It holds up a mirror and forces us to acknowledge that, at least at one time, we were capable of something lesser.
And so the question becomes: What now?
Step One: Own It, Without the Caveats
When confronted with our past misdeeds, our first instinct is often to rationalize. I was young. I didn’t know any better. I was going through a hard time. All of these things may be true. But they do not change the essential fact: You hurt someone. You failed in some fundamental way.
Ownership is uncomfortable. It requires resisting the temptation to explain away your actions or soften their impact. It demands that you sit with the full, undiluted truth. “I did this. It was wrong.” That’s it. No footnotes, no excuses, no postscript of exoneration.
This step is where a lot of people get stuck. Because to own a mistake means to recognize that, for at least a moment, you were the villain in someone else’s story. And that is a difficult thing to accept.
Step Two: Make Amends—If You Can
Not every mistake can be undone. Not every person wants an apology. But if there is a way to repair the damage, even in the smallest of ways, you owe it to yourself to try.
The trouble with apologies is that we often frame them as transactions: I say I’m sorry, and you forgive me, and then I get to stop feeling bad. But that’s not how it works. An apology is not a request for absolution; it is an acknowledgment of harm. It is an act of humility, not a magic eraser.
Sometimes, amends require more than words. They demand action—restitution, patience, the willingness to rebuild trust where it has been shattered. And sometimes, there is no way back. The bridge is burned, the damage irreparable.
Which leads to the harder question: What do you do when there is no fixing what you broke?
Step Three: If You Can’t Fix the Past, Fix the Future
If the door to reconciliation is closed, then the only option left is to live differently moving forward. If you can’t apologize to the person you hurt, then be better to the next person who enters your life. If you betrayed someone’s trust, then make honesty a bedrock principle of who you are now. If you caused harm in a way that cannot be undone, then commit yourself to preventing that harm in others.
This is the part that many people misunderstand about guilt: It is not meant to be a life sentence. It is meant to be a guide. Regret is a directional force—it exists to prevent you from making the same mistakes again.
Step Four: You Are Not Just Your Worst Moments
Here is the thing about being human: We are all, at some point, the villain in someone else’s story. We are all, at some point, the architect of someone else’s pain. No one is exempt from this.
The weight of past mistakes can feel unbearable, as though they are permanently affixed to you, like a tattoo you never wanted but now must wear. And there’s a reason for that—our culture has an oddly punitive relationship with the past. We demand accountability, but we struggle with the notion of true redemption. We tell people to change, but then refuse to let them.
It’s easy to believe that you are frozen in time, forever defined by the worst thing you did. That if you once were selfish, or cruel, or dishonest, then you will always be that person, just wearing a more socially acceptable mask. That if someone still remembers what you did, still carries the pain you caused, then you are undeserving of grace.
But here is the other thing about being human: You are not static. You are not locked into a single, unchanging state of being.
If we believe that people can grow—that they can become kinder, wiser, more responsible versions of themselves—then we have to allow that belief to apply to ourselves, too. That doesn’t mean denying or excusing the past. It means understanding that who you were is not the totality of who you are.
And here’s where things get tricky: No one else gets to decide for you when you’ve done enough to make peace with your past. No one can tell you whether you’ve sufficiently “earned” redemption, because redemption is not a transaction—it’s a lifelong process of becoming.
The people you hurt may never forgive you. That is their right. The past may always carry the faint scent of regret. That is the nature of time. But the choice you do have, right now, is how you live in response to that past.
You do not get to rewrite history.
But you can change how the story ends.
And maybe, in the grand scheme of things, that is enough.