Explorations of Regret

By Dan Ariely and Olga Gajewska

Regret is a powerful emotion and a universal part of being human. Regret is that sinking feeling we get when we realize our decisions or actions have led us somewhere less than ideal. But regret is complex; it’s not just about disliking the outcome. It’s inherently comparative, driven by the gap between reality and an imagined alternative scenario where things turn out better.

Thinking about regret this way, we might wonder why do we need it at all? The answer is that while regret is certainly negative in the short term, it can lead us to make the changes we should make moving forward.

To delve deeper into people’s regrets—what they are and how they drive us—we asked around 600 of you to share your regrets from the last 10 years. Specifically, we asked: If you think back to the last 10 years, what is the most important change that you wish you had made in your life but didn’t?

Here is what we learnt.

What Kinds of Things We Regret

A significant portion of respondents said that the largest regrets that they have are connected with professional lives. Many regretted not pursuing their true interests or felt they “played it safe” rather than chasing ambitious goals. Next were regrets over missed romantic relationships or staying in unfitting ones.

Another common category was about “a place to live,” often revolving around missed opportunities for adventure and lifestyle shifts. Some longed for a different pace of life, wishing they’d moved to a more vibrant city or a quieter locale. Others regretted not moving abroad when they had the chance.

Next on the list was self-awareness, a deeply personal journey where people reflect on the courage they wished they’d had to be true to themselves. Many shared regrets about not overcoming fears and missing opportunities due to a lack of personal resilience or belief in their abilities. Others regretted not standing up for themselves and letting others’ opinions dictate their choices.

Do We Regret More What We Do, Or What We Didn’t Do?

When we think about regret, no matter in which domain of life, we can think about regret from action and regret from inaction. Regret from action are the things that we regret that we did. For example, a job we took, a city we moved to, etc. Regret from inaction are the things that we regret that we didn’t do. For example, a job we didn’t take, a city we didn’t move to, etc.

When viewed from this action / inaction perspective, the largest regrets belonged to the inaction category. The largest regrets were about bold career and romantic decisions they didn’t make? and places they didn’t move to. It seems that what we regret most are the large unfinished narratives of our lives—the paths we never took.

Despite how it may seem, regret isn’t necessarily just negative. It’s our mind’s way of helping us learn from the past. By replaying our mistakes and missteps in our minds over and over and feeling bad about them, our brains file them away as lessons for the future.

On a personal note, many people come to me with their regrets. Sometimes these are people who are working with me; sometimes these are people I don’t know who want some advice about these regrets. My general approach to regrets is not to tell people, ”Don't worry about it.” Instead, I invite people to feel the regret, experience it, remember it, pay attention to it. I tell them that regret has a role in our lives; it’s designed to teach us a lesson and to help us not make the same mistake again. “Try to feel and remember the regret right now, because this is what will help you avoid such undesirable behaviors in the future” is my standard advice.?

What We Think We Will Regret

In addition to asking people what they regret, we also asked what they think they will regret 10 years from now. The exact question was: Imagine a day that is 10 years from now. On that day you are looking back at the last 10 years and reflecting on them. On that day, what do you think you would consider to be the life change that you wish you had made in your life but didn’t?

Of course, people don’t know what they will regret, but this is a question that allows us to explore the extent to which people think they will change the next 10 years of their lives.

There were some interesting differences between the reports of past regrets and the predictions of future regrets. While career was prominent in both past regret and future regret, self-awareness became more prominent in future regret, suggesting a heightened desire to be bolder, establish boundaries, and step into one’s strength. Another shift between reporting on past regrets in predicting future regret was a shift between romantic relationships to an emphasis on family and kids. This difference, of course, could be simply due to the next phase of life for the respondents who were earlier in their romantic life in the past 10 years and are more mature and with families in the next chapter.

Interestingly, fewer people anticipate regretting inaction in the future compared to past regrets. While inaction still ranked high, many predicted they’d regret misaligned priorities or failing to stay consistent with their goals in key life areas. One explanation for this difference is that when we think about future regret, we place our bets on our values—living true to ourselves, having the jobs we want, and spending more time with family members.

Finally, there were, of course, some people for whom the mistakes of the past are likely to keep repeating themselves. About a quarter of our participants anticipated their future regrets would fall into the same types of regrets (e.g., career, romantic relationships) as their current regrets—suggesting that maybe they feel regret, but this regret has not been translated into the kind of life changes that would make future regret any different.

In summary, it is obvious that we all have large regrets. Some of them are about the big pillars of our lives, and they are mostly about brave decisions we didn’t make rather than about the decisions we made. And while regret is supposed to teach us a lesson so that we will not make mistakes in the future, regret seems to be only an amateur teacher because when we predict the next 10 years, it is very clear that large regrets are still going to be an inherent part of our lives.

Below are the top five categories for past regrets—the most important changes you wish you had made in your life but didn’t over the last 10 years—and for future regrets, i.e., the changes you anticipate not making in the next 10 years.

All results: