What Regret Is Trying to Teach You

What was the last thing you regretted? An unappetising lunch you'd ordered? An overpriced purchase? Or perhaps the wrong degree, the wrong job, the wrong marriage? People in a busy society are said to make more than thirty thousand decisions of every size each day, and "regret" seems an unavoidable theme — over trifles and over life's biggest choices alike — one that can even leave us dwelling on the past and stuck in place. Add the rise of social media to the mix, and we find it all the easier to compare our own choices against others', to measure our lives against theirs, and so to feel regret more often.

Why do we feel regret?

Regret is the product of choice and comparison. The main reason we regret is that our choice did not produce the best outcome (for example, the "best" option we chose turned out worse than we'd hoped, or we failed to choose the "best" option at all). Within those reasons, we may regret what we did, or we may regret what we didn't do. It's worth noting that even when we don't have enough information to judge how the other possible outcomes would have turned out, we may still assume that some other scenario would have been better than the present one. Either way, we feel we should have been able to make a better decision, and having to bear the consequences of an outcome we're not happy with is itself "regret".

If you had the chance to choose again, what would you do?

When we feel regret, we always assume that with one more chance we would surely make a better decision. Yet the psychologist Leon F Seltzer points out that our ways of thinking have a certain fixedness: even if we really could rewind time to the moment of choice, we would likely lean on the same mental machinery and make the same choice all over again. External factors (our environment) and internal factors (past experience, beliefs, and so on) both shape our decisions. Acting on "intuition" often means our inner subconscious is steering our choices — and at times it can carry even more weight than objective reasoning. Because this inner machinery is built up out of a person's early experiences, even long-buried events we may not consciously remember can reshape our patterns of thought.

As we grow up, we interact with our caregivers and our environment, and out of that we form and learn an inner way of handling things. A caregiver's parenting style and the environment we grow up in are major factors shaping how this inner machinery forms. For instance, if a child is frequently met with harsh discipline, or has their opinions ignored or dismissed, they may develop an overly cautious inner mechanism that leaves them hesitant when making decisions and reluctant to take risks. Such inner mechanisms can help us make the right decisions in childhood, but as we move into new environments they may no longer apply, leading us to make decisions that aren't the most suitable. In the example above, that careful, cautious way of handling things might cause a person to miss more than a few opportunities. Even when the circumstances favour rising to a challenge and trying something new, they may unconsciously refuse — and then feel regret.

So you regret — then what?

Although regret is an inner feeling, that feeling can also affect physical health. Research indicates that the state we're in when caught in regret is similar to being under stress. We may feel regret over something we did, but that feeling generally eases with time. By contrast, we tend to find the opportunities we missed by not taking action harder to make up for. As a result, regret and guilt may persist over the long term, and in severe cases there may even be symptoms of elevated cortisol and a weakened immune system.

Regret means we failed to make things as perfect as we'd have liked — but admitting our own imperfection is no easy thing. So rather than feel regret, our first reaction may be to lean towards protecting our self-esteem and adjusting how we see things. For example, if we're unhappy with the subject we're studying, we may pin the blame on our family for talking us into choosing an unsuitable field at the time — telling ourselves we only made that decision because we found it hard to say no. By dodging responsibility for making the "wrong" decision (not admitting we might have fallen short), we keep our self-image intact. In the short term, this "denial" protects the ego, but the avoidance leaves us unable to face the root of the problem squarely. When we meet a similar problem again, we can't resolve it any more effectively — we treat the symptoms, not the cause.

So is admitting that we made an unsuitable choice always the best thing? Reasonable reflection and improvement are of course worthwhile, but excessive, intense self-blame can backfire. In the wake of regret, we may fall into rumination — replaying over and over the self who made the wrong decision, and the better outcomes the other options might have produced — and then sink into self-blame and self-doubt. When we focus only on harshly reproaching ourselves with "why did I make such a bad decision", rumination becomes a vicious cycle: negative emotions are reinforced, our capacity to solve problems is lowered, and a sense of helplessness follows. In severe cases there is a greater chance of producing conditions such as depression and anxiety. This is especially so when, during our formative years, our personal views were neither respected nor accepted — for then, when something negative happens, a person readily lays the blame for the "mistake" on themselves. Likewise, by dwelling too much on blaming ourselves, we leave ourselves no room to think calmly about how to do better, and find it hard to make a better choice.

Of course, regret is not a pleasant feeling — but that doesn't mean regret does us no good. Regret doesn't merely stand for a mistake; it equally reflects our resolve to reflect on past experience and move forward. When we feel regret, we might try to settle down and observe, without judgement, the thoughts and feelings within us. By writing them down or sharing them with others, we let ourselves experience "regret" deeply. In every "wrong" decision there is a chance to learn — to grow in self-awareness, to clarify the things or principles we value, and so to adjust how we make decisions and make more suitable ones in future.

However hard we try, looking back on the past will always leave some moments of regret to remind us of the choices and decisions we once made. Even if we don't necessarily endorse the choices we made at the time, it's normal to feel regret. Yet we can come to know our own values and how we make decisions — and, more importantly, we need to forgive ourselves and keep moving forward. Though we can't change what's already happened, that doesn't mean we can only mark time on the spot, confined to the same way of thinking. What matters more is recognising that a person's thinking can grow — drawing a lesson from each imperfection, and letting regret become the drive to move forward.

References

Gilovich, T., & Medvec, V. H. (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological review, 102(2), 379.

Levens, S. M., Muhtadie, L., & Gotlib, I. H. (2009). Rumination and impaired resource allocation in depression. Journal of abnormal psychology, 118(4), 757.

Roese, N. (2005). If only: How to turn regret into opportunity. Harmony.

Zeelenberg, M., Van Dijk, W. W., Manstead, A. S., & vanr de Pligt, J. (2000). On bad decisions and disconfirmed expectancies: The psychology of regret and disappointment. Cognition & Emotion, 14(4), 521-541.