Are Regrets Good or Bad for Us?

Most people have regrets about something in their lives. And it’s very common for people nearing the end of their lives. There are conflicting views and questions as to whether having these regrets serve a purpose. Is it possible to have no regrets? Which regrets are more powerful — the ones that involve mistakes we have made (commission) or the ones that involve things we didn’t do (omission)?

Regret is a negative emotion that?occurs when a person believes his or her past actions or behaviors, if changed, may have achieved a better outcome. Regret is often closely associated with feelings of guilt and shame. We often express the emotion of regret to others in the form of an apology.

Sometimes Regret Can Be Helpful

Regret can be a beneficial by helping the person experiencing it gain insight and improve future decision-making skills. Research by Mike Morrison and colleagues published in the?Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology ?report regret is an essential psychological construct related to decision-making, coping, and learning. Regret can also be helpful because it signals the need for a corrective action, which can push people into implementing that action. Under the right circumstances, this can be considered a beneficial consequence of regret. However, for the most part, regrets are not helpful.

The Negative Effects of Regret

Janet Landman, author of?Regret: Persistence of the Possible, ?defines regret as a “more or less painful cognitive and emotional state of feeling sorry for misfortunes, limitations, losses, transgressions, shortcomings or mistakes. It is an experience of felt-reason or reasoned-emotion. The regretted matters may be sins of commission as well as sins of omission; they may range from the voluntary to the uncontrollable and accidental; they may be actually executed deeds or entirely mental ones committed by oneself or by another person or group; they may be moral or legal transgressions or morally and legally neutral.”

Some research seems to suggest that the difference is that of action vs inaction and that people who regret not taking action were more negatively affected than by the actions they took which they regret.

Thomas Giloviqh and Vitoria Husted Medvec argue in their article in?Psychological Review,? ?that shows there are psychological processes that decrease the pain of regrettable action over time and shows how a person’s cognitive processes impact the difference.

Their research describes their six studies which show new evidence that our most enduring regrets concern not living up to our “ideal-selves” (i.e. not becoming the person we wanted to be), as opposed to not living according to our “ought-selves” (the person we should have been based on our duties and responsibilities).

“Our work is the first to show that people’s most prominent life regrets more often involve failures to live up to their ideal-self than their ought-self,” the researchers concluded. And they added the work “… is the first to document the role played by behavioral and psychological coping mechanisms in people’s tendency to regret their failures to live up to their ideal selves.”

If you place a premium on your ought to self, you “would be wise to minimize [your] regrets by thinking twice before forging ahead [and seizing the moment]” they suggest. On the other hand, “if one is an adventurous soul guided by her ideal-self, she might indeed end up happier by seizing the day and not looking back. As we have shown in this research, a person focused on her ideal-self is more likely to lose sleep over her ‘wouldas’ and ‘couldas’ than her ‘shouldas’.”

Giloviqh and Medvec conclude the following:

• The passage of time brings an increase in retrospection, and belief that the failure to act was inexcusable.
• The consequences of regrettable actions tend to be finite; the consequences of regrettable inaction tend to be psychologically infinite.
• ?Regrettable failures to act tend to more memorable and enduring than regrettable actions.

Some people argue that we should “regret nothing” or that they “wouldn’t do things differently,” if they could live their lives over again. While not doubting the sincerity of those beliefs, that’s hard to accept at face value, Giloviqh and Medvec argue: “First, living a life where you haven’t made mistakes is either extremely difficult to accomplish, or the person is not telling the truth. And if the mistakes we made resulted in harm to others, society, the environment, or even ourselves, there’s a good reason have regrets. Failing to take action in a situation that may have resulted in harm could also be a situation where regret is understandable, and another choice could have been made.”

Other?research studies?show??that we do have short-lived regrets for our mistakes, but usually within two weeks. But the regrets for things we didn’t do, the missed opportunities? Those can last for years.

What Do We Regret Most?

Bronnie Ware, a palliative nurse published a book based upon her years of caring for dying people,?The Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed .?She says?“When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled,” she wrote. “Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices that they had made, or not made.”

Ware describes the following regrets as being in common among her patients:

1. ?“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
2. ?“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
3. ?“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
4. ?“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
5. ?“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

A common thread that runs through these five regrets of the dying is that they are all omissions (things that were not done), as opposed to commissions (mistakes we have made for which we may also feel guilt).

Mike Morrison and Neal Roese published a study in?Social Psychology and Personality Science ?in which they examined the most common regrets, and found they mostly dealt with relationships but there were gender differences. Roese noted as well, that women had most frequent regrets about intimate relationships, whereas men had work and career regrets.

They also studied the issue of commission or omission. Which was more important depends on whether the regret is related to our actions with respect to an act of commission or omission, Roese said: “Regret for behavior or actions we may have taken in the past where harm was done to others serves a healthy purpose if we subsequently take responsibility for our actions, and where feasible, do something to make amends to those injured. In that way, we are taking responsibility for the present, and not being mired in the past.” The research seems to indicate that people engage in strategies to deal with regret involving action more readily than regrets about inaction.

Then there’s the issue of whether we would do things differently if we could go back in the past. The researchers found people who harbor regrets of omission think they would do things differently if presented with the same scenario, decision, or choice again.

But this is faulty logic, they argued. First, we can’t revisit the past and have a do-over. Second, if a future similar situation arose, it would never be completely the same as there are too many variables to replicate. Finally, ruminating or obsessing about a regret of omission assumes 20/20 retroactive vision — that we could see then what we see now — which is not possible. We often make the choices and decisions in life at the time given what we know. The focus of dealing productively with the consequences of our choices and decisions is just as important as the decision or choice itself.

So What Can We Learn From This?

1. Learn that it’s oaky to make mistakes in life, providing you learn from them and forgive yourself for making them.
2. ?Take responsibility for the mistakes you’ve made that have caused harm and commit to making amends where possible.
3. ?Learn how to embrace mindful acceptances of what is. This means accepting that you can’t change the past and must live in the present.
4. Accept your feelings of regret which may include sadness or guilt, or even anger. Don’t try to suppress or block those feelings.
5. Be grateful for the things you have in life rather than regretting the things you don’t have, or missed out one.
6. ?Accept that life can be unpredictable, and that you will always be faced with choices. You can’t control all the variables.
7. Let go of a victim mentality if you believe your regret is can be blamed on someone or something else.
8. ?Let go of the need to compare yourself to others (their successes or good fortune).
9. Give up the “what if I had….” dialogue with yourself. That’s living in the past.

10.??Be clear about your life purpose and commit to living true to that purpose each moment of each day.

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