Wrong Ends, Wrong Means?

A Per­son­al Reflec­tion on Deci­sion-Mak­ing and Regret

In the past few weeks, we explored var­i­ous psy­cho­log­i­cal con­cepts relat­ed to deci­sion-mak­ing. We exam­ined the­o­ries, dis­cussed case stud­ies, and reflect­ed on how psy­cho­log­i­cal knowl­edge can be applied to real-world sce­nar­ios to improve choic­es and avoid pit­falls. Much of the lit­er­a­ture focused on high-stakes deci­sions, cas­es where instinct, mis­judged sig­nals, or somat­ic mark­ers led to poor out­comes. But as I engaged with these ideas, I found myself think­ing about the more ordi­nary deci­sions we all make. Every­day choic­es that may not make head­lines but still shape our lives in mean­ing­ful ways. When these deci­sions don’t go as planned, are they tru­ly “wrong”?

Right or…Wrong?

Liv­ing in Swe­den meant I had to learn Swedish. I enrolled in Sven­s­ka för invan­drare (Sfi), where one day our teacher explained how to give and under­stand direc­tions. She drew a mod­el of a city on the white­board to illus­trate her point. She showed us how to take a “gen­väg” (short­cut) to reach a des­ti­na­tion quick­ly. Curi­ous, I asked what the oppo­site of a short­cut would be. She smiled and said, “omväg” (detour), and start­ed draw­ing a wind­ing route that looped across her city map — left, right, up, and down — until it final­ly reached the des­ti­na­tion.

Before I could respond, my class­mate to the right laughed and said, “Well, that looks like the sto­ry of my life!” I had the same thought, and before I could say any­thing, our teacher nod­ded and laughed, too. I added, “Well, at least you’ve seen every­thing!”

That moment struck me. Look­ing at the ink-scat­tered map, I real­ized how often our lives take the “umväg”. These detours, full of twists and turns, might seem like being built on wrong and inef­fec­tive deci­sions. But though they might not be effi­cient — they are per­son­al. They are ours. They include every­thing we’ve seen, every­thing we’ve done, and every­thing we’ve learned along the way. It made me won­der whether we can tru­ly label a deci­sion “wrong” [2] just because it didn’t take us on the most direct route (some­times not even to your desired goal).

But let’s be hon­est — embrac­ing that idea isn’t always easy. As humans, we often default to dichoto­mous think­ing: good vs. bad, easy vs. difficult…right vs. wrong. When a deci­sion leads to an unex­pect­ed or dis­ap­point­ing out­come, we tend to replay it in our minds. We imag­ine what could have been, cre­at­ing sce­nar­ios where every­thing might have turned out bet­ter if only, we had cho­sen dif­fer­ent­ly. And that is where regret comes in. We will take a deep­er look at this and also look­ing at solu­tions for this phe­nom­e­non.

If Only…

The Cana­di­an psy­chol­o­gist Neal Roese has writ­ten exten­sive­ly about this phe­nom­e­non, known as coun­ter­fac­tu­al think­ing. In his book “If Only…”, Roese explains how we con­struct men­tal alter­na­tives to real­i­ty [5]. He describes two pri­ma­ry types: upward coun­ter­fac­tu­als (“I almost…”) and down­ward coun­ter­fac­tu­als (“At least…”). Upward coun­ter­fac­tu­als tend to focus on missed oppor­tu­ni­ties and bet­ter imag­ined out­comes. Down­ward coun­ter­fac­tu­als help us feel grate­ful by com­par­ing our cur­rent sit­u­a­tion to worse pos­si­bil­i­ties.

While occa­sion­al coun­ter­fac­tu­al thoughts can be help­ful, espe­cial­ly when they lead to learn­ing or moti­va­tion, exces­sive think­ing can become bur­den­some. Stud­ies sug­gest that con­stant upward think­ing is linked with dete­ri­o­ra­tion of men­tal health: Peo­ple who suf­fer from depres­sion are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence upward coun­ter­fac­tu­als. But it also works in the oth­er direc­tion and here rumi­na­tion is a key as it is linked to emo­tion­al dis­tress. Indi­vid­u­als become trapped in neg­a­tive thought loops, rumi­nate over past deci­sions, fos­ter feel­ings of help­less­ness and self-crit­i­cism instead of growth and self-com­pas­sion, mak­ing them more vul­ner­a­ble to devel­op depres­sive symp­toms. This psy­cho­log­i­cal mech­a­nism plays a key role in our emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence of regret. Gilovich and Med­vec (1995) describe regret as both cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al — a reac­tion to the gap between what is and what might have been. It involves sor­row, dis­ap­point­ment, and often self-blame…especially short term. But inter­est­ing­ly, their research revealed a deep­er insight: when peo­ple reflect on their lives over the long term, they tend to regret their inac­tions more than their actions.

The Road not Tak­en…

In one study involv­ing old­er adults, 75% report­ed that they regret­ted the things they did not do — the risks not tak­en, the words not spo­ken, the paths not explored. These missed chances often linger longer than any regret for a mis­take made or a failed attempt. As Gilovich and Med­vec con­clud­ed, “When peo­ple look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that gen­er­ate the great­est regret.” So, what can we do about this? For­tu­nate­ly, there are ways to man­age regret and har­ness it con­struc­tive­ly [3][4].

Learn­ing to Live With “If Only” and Turn­ing Regret Into Growth

Roese (2005) offers sev­er­al prac­ti­cal strate­gies for man­ag­ing regret and reduc­ing the emo­tion­al toll of coun­ter­fac­tu­al think­ing:

• Don’t Over­re­act: Resist the urge to with­draw from future oppor­tu­ni­ties just because of a past mis­take. Avoid­ing risk can lead to stag­na­tion and more regret.
• Think Down­ward: Cul­ti­vate grat­i­tude by imag­in­ing how things could have turned out worse. This per­spec­tive shift can soft­en feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ment.
• Take Action: Try some­thing new, even if it might fail. In the long run, it’s inac­tion — not failed attempts — that peo­ple regret most.
• View Regrets as Oppor­tu­ni­ties: Instead of let­ting “if only…” thoughts trap you, use them as cues for where growth and change are still pos­si­ble.

Mak­ing Sense

There is anoth­er, often over­looked, dimen­sion to regret: sense-mak­ing. Even deci­sions that seem mis­guid­ed in hind­sight aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly fail­ures. As human beings, we pos­sess a pow­er­ful capac­i­ty for con­struct­ing mean­ing. Turn­er et al. (2023) describe sense-mak­ing as a dynam­ic process through which we build, use, and reject infor­ma­tion to guide our actions. This process allows us to inter­pret ambigu­ous or dis­ap­point­ing results in a way that still sup­ports per­son­al growth [6]. In oth­er words, we don’t just react to deci­sions; we process them. We try to under­stand them, place them with­in a broad­er con­text, and extract insight from them. This capac­i­ty enables us to reframe what ini­tial­ly felt like a mis­take into some­thing that helped us grow or led us some­where unex­pect­ed.

Refram­ing Deci­sions and Their Results

You can active­ly enhance this sense-mak­ing process by prac­tic­ing refram­ing, also called cog­ni­tive restruc­tur­ing. Which is a tech­nique from cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral ther­a­py that involves iden­ti­fy­ing and chal­leng­ing neg­a­tive thought pat­terns [1]. Instead of inter­pret­ing a past deci­sion as a “fail­ure”, refram­ing encour­ages you to ask: What did I learn? What strengths did I dis­cov­er? What new path did this open up? This isn’t about sug­ar­coat­ing dis­ap­point­ment. It’s about rec­og­niz­ing that you have agency in how you inter­pret your expe­ri­ences. By refram­ing, you can reduce the emo­tion­al sting of regret and trans­form it into a sto­ry of resilience, insight, and growth.

If you want to explore this idea fur­ther and if you want to know more about how refram­ing works read Tab­u­la Rasa.

Final Note on Deci­sion-Mak­ing

Regret can be painful. It can make us ques­tion our past, our judg­ment, and even our self-worth. But it can also teach us. It can high­light what mat­ters most. The impor­tant thing to remem­ber is you don’t know how the alter­na­tive would have unfold­ed!

The goal you imag­ined might not have brought hap­pi­ness. The path you didn’t take may have held its own set­backs. What mat­ters is what you do now. Focus on what your deci­sions have taught you, what they may have pre­vent­ed, and what unex­pect­ed joys they may have made pos­si­ble. After all, the detour might not be the fastest way to the des­ti­na­tion — but it might just be the most scenic one.

Ref­er­ences

[1 ] Beck, A. T. (1976). Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py and the emo­tion­al dis­or­ders. New York: Inter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ties Press.

[2] Depeche Mode. (2009). Wrong. From Sounds of the Uni­verse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnrrLxQEVQ

[3] Gilovich, T., & Med­vec, V. H. (1995). The expe­ri­ence of regret: What, when, and why. Psy­cho­log­i­cal Review, 102(2), 379–395. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/15459284_The_Experience_of_Regret_What_When_and_Why

[4] Gilovich, T., Wang, R. F., Regan, D. T., & Nishi­na, S. (2003). Regrets of action and inac­tion across cul­tures. Jour­nal of Cross-Cul­tur­al Psy­chol­o­gy, 34(1), 61–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022102239155

[5] Roese, N. J. (2005). If Only: How to Turn Regret Into Oppor­tu­ni­ty. Broad­way Books.

[6] Turn­er, J.R., Allen, J., Hawamdeh, S., & Mas­tanam­ma, G. (2023). The Mul­ti­fac­eted Sense­mak­ing The­o­ry: A Sys­tem­at­ic Lit­er­a­ture Review and Con­tent Analy­sis on Sense­mak­ing. Sys­tems, 11(3), 145. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11030145