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If your regret involves your business or career, try a technique from the late Intel CEO Andy Grove, who reportedly would ask himself, “If I were replaced tomorrow, what would my successor do?”
Imagine it is ten years from now and you’re looking back with pride on how you responded to this regret. What did you do?
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” Viktor Frankl, 1946
When we envision how awful we might feel in the future if we don’t act appropriately now, that negative emotion—which we simulate rather than experience—can improve our behavior.
Anticipating regret offers a convenient tool for judgment. In situations where you’re unsure of your next move, ask yourself, “In the future, will I regret this decision if I don’t do X?” Answer the question. Apply that answer to your current situation. This approach underlies the (small but growing) popularity of “obituary parties”—in
The conventional wisdom is plain: stick with your first instinct and don’t change the answer. The conventional wisdom is also wrong. Nearly every study conducted on the topic has shown that when students change answers on tests, they are significantly more likely to change from a wrong answer to a right answer (sweet!) than they are to switch from a right answer to a wrong one (d’oh!). Students who change their answers usually improve their scores.[31] So, why does this wrongheaded advice endure? Anticipated regret distorts our judgment.
Kruger, Wirtz, and Miller call this the “first instinct fallacy,” and it grows from anticipated regret gone awry. “Getting a problem wrong as a result of going against one’s first instinct is more memorable than getting a problem wrong because of failing to go against one’s first instinct,” they write. “The regret produced by switching an answer when one should have stuck with one’s original answer is enough to make the misfortune of having missed the question seem almost tragic.”[32] Haunted by the prospective specter of If Only, we err.
If not, satisfice. For example, if you’re buying lawn furniture or a(nother) microwave oven, that decision is unlikely to involve any fundamental, enduring human need. Make a choice and move on. You’ll be fine.
If the decision does involve one of the big four, spend more time deliberating. Project yourself into the future—five years, ten years, at age eighty, whatever makes sense. From that future vantage point, ask yourself which choice will help you build your foundation, take a sensible risk, do the right thing, or maintain a meaningful connection. Anticipate these regrets. Then choose the option that most reduces them.
