Regrets, we’ve all had a few, to paraphrase that famous Sinatra ditty. Unfortunately, the sting of wishing we’d done things differently doesn’t quite disappear just because it’s a common phenomenon. For some of us, regrets are all-consuming sources of shame, anxiety and fear – so much so, that we’ve become obsessed with how to avoid them entirely.
But how helpful is it to agonise over these decisions? Is it even possible to live a life completely devoid of regret? And if it is, how would one achieve that?
Adrienne Adhami, wellbeing coach and author of How to Make Decisions in A World of Endless Choice, believes there are tools we can employ to help us at least come to terms with the decisions we make, for better or worse.
“There’s so much more choice now, and that can sound like a good thing,” she says. “But it’s paradoxical because the more choice we have, the more variables there are to consider and that’s where we can get stuck, overthink and wonder ‘If I choose this what if something better comes along tomorrow?’”
“When we are making a decision that involves change or taking action, I try to encourage people to think about accepting that there will always be some uncertainty. Accepting the unknown can be quite freeing. If you wait for certainty or perfection to move forward, you’re never going to be able to move at all.”
When Daniel Pink, author of The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, conducted a global survey of over 26,000 regrets he found that regrets fell into four main categories:
Understanding the root of our regrets may be a helpful way not just to come to terms with the choices we wish we had or hadn’t made but also help us to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. And Pink suggests that the best way to address these regrets, is to share them.
“In my experience, there’s a kind of pluralistic ignorance here,” he said in an interview with Behavioral Scientist. “We believe that no one else has many regrets, and certainly if they did, they wouldn’t want to mention them. So we think that we should be that way too, even though we actually desperately want to talk about them—because talking about them is a way of relieving the burden. Talking about them is a way of making sense of those regrets.”
UCL-based neuropsychologist Chris Frith thinks that regret is an inevitable part of life. He suggests that we rethink the way that we look at it entirely; seeing it as a helpful tool, rather than something negative.
“The only way to not have regret or disappointment is if the world is completely predictable or stable,” he says. “And we know that is not the case, particularly at the moment. The world seems to be getting even more unstable. And so you’re constantly having to learn. And the only way you can learn, of course, is by making errors.”
Adrienne Adhami echoes this view.
“Part of the human experience is to have regrets,” she says. “I sometimes reframe my own regrets as signposts and I think actually, if that situation arises again, next time I’m going to do it differently.”
In other words, rather than punishing yourself for making a mistake, try to learn from it, resolve to do things differently in the future – and move on.
We tend to regret some decisions more than others. Why is that? Chris Frith thinks that we are more likely to regret something that was a deliberate choice – rather than something that happened by chance.
“The mere feeling of regret reminds us that we have agency and we’re not completely blown around by chance and other people,” he says.
“You regret something more if it’s a deliberate choice. Let’s say you ride your bicycle through the park every day, there’s a round pond and you always go around it to the left.
“But then one day, you went round to the right, and there was a fallen tree which you crashed into. You’ll regret it more because you’ve made that decision. Whereas if you’d fallen and crashed into the fallen tree on the left, which is the way you usually go, you would have less regret. You feel more regret if you feel you’re the agent of that choice.”
Fear of regrets can often be so strong that it leads to indecision – which become a vicious cycle; something that Adhami’s clients often struggle with.
“Regrets of inaction seem to be far more weighted than regrets of past mistakes. If you started a new business venture and it failed, you would learn a lot along the way about the contributing factors that made the business fail – which that aren’t all because of your choices. But regrets of inaction feel like an open loop that you never know the answer to which can be a bit more tormenting.”
She stresses, however, that while fear can keep us from making choices that we may later regret, it can also be a helpful tool.
“Our brains are designed to keep us safe and uncertainty doesn’t always feel safe. But one thing that I encourage is to accept that there will always be some uncertainty. That can be quite freeing and help you to let go of some of that fear. If you wait for certainty or perfection to move forward, you’ll hold yourself back.”
Chris Frith says that being influenced by others in our decisions plays a large role in how we feel about our decisions.
“Regret is particularly strong when we have violated some social or group norm, So it may have a role in cultural evolution particularly in instilling such norms in us.”
In What Makes Us Social?, his 2023 book with developmental psychologist and UCL Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development, Uta Frith (also his wife), this is explained further.
“For example, we expect guests invited to a birthday to bring a gift and are perplexed if they come empty-handed. They are also revealed in the surprise at social gaffes, such as appearing in shorts at a formal event. Such rules may be ridiculed as trivial, but in truth, without them our interactions would be far less smooth.”
Adrienne Adhami recognises this too. “All of us face decisions, whether big or small every single day and many of us lack the confidence to trust that we know what’s best, that it’s the right time or the right opportunity. Partly, that’s because modern living means that we are seeing so much more of everybody else’s lives.”
She believes the best way to resist such pressure can be to set boundaries for yourself – and not just internally.
“Other people respect rules and boundaries much more when you communicate them. You could say, ‘I don’t drink at work events’, or, ‘I don’t drink on weekdays’, so that you’re not relying on willpower or making another decision when you’re tired, stressed or have decision fatigue from a whole day of work. It means that when somebody says ‘just have a drink’, you can communicate your rule rather than framing it as an open question – and people will be more likely to accept it.”
But our best bet when it comes to making peace with regret in our lives, says Chris Frith, is to welcome, rather than fear it. “People try to avoid regret because it’s an unpleasant emotion but I think we should welcome regret, because it tells us that we’re capable of doing things and can do them better next time.”
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