Gemma Speck

But the moments where, you know, if they were honest, they had some power and they didn't use it.

That was where a lot of the pain lay.

They could have chased after that person.

They could have bet on themselves.

They could have started the business.

They could have gone and gotten that education.

That is the stuff that left the greatest impact.

and I think that for people in their 20s that's both a sobering and strangely empowering thought it means that our regrets cluster around our sense of agency and knowing that is actually really essential and it's a vital takeaway if one of your goals is to avoid regret in the future I want to explain exactly why after this short break.

I think in our 20s, we definitely may have regrets.

We may have a few regrets like, you know, I regret how I treated that friend.

I regret not taking that job.

But most of how we experience regret is our future fear of it and wanting to ensure we have as little of it as possible.

That is why I think personally, like people love those lists, like the lists I was just talking about of like the greatest regrets.

We love them so much because they're like this guide, right?

The irony is, though, the more you think about what you may or may not regret, the more you analyze it, the more you actually let that influence your decision making, and the more likely you are actually going to make decisions that you regret more or not make a decision that you regret.

Why is this?

Why?

Because it's artificially increasing the stakes for any and all decisions you make if you have this lingering fear that it's going to be the wrong one.

And so that fear and that assessment of regret and whether this has potential for regret or not constantly interrupts your ability to trust your instincts.

A lot of us live in what we call pre-regret.