Repentance is part of the salvation process. You do not hear it enough. It is a work of God in a person's heart and mind. We as Gentiles, we sort of learn it backwards. We do not realize that once we receive Christ that He is going to lead us down His path not our path. And we struggle with it for years because God is just not doing things our way. We are trying all the things so that magically the Holy Spirit will bring about what we desire. But in reality God wants us to be in submission; to follow Him. That is what a disciple of Jesus Christ is.
Repentance is making a decision to change the direction of one's life while knowing you are not capable of changing yourself, that it must be Christ. It must be His Spirit coming in and taking over and changing the direction of my life. That is what salvation is, it is surrender. It is not a free ticket to heaven, it is following Christ.
