Are you having regrets? Are you blaming yourself

for things which you may have no control over?

When living life good things and bad things happen.

It is a part of what we do. Failures hurt don’t

they? Well, for some feeling the regret of making a bad decision is the worst feeling

of all. They beat themselves up for what they

did or did not do. They put themselves in “shut down” mode to the point that they may

stop making good desicions just to avoid

feeling the pain of regret. Have you ever done this? Regret and responsibility go

hand in hand. The more responsibility we take for our actions, the greater the

feelings of regret can be.

Let’s follow the following individuals, Moe,

Larry, and Curly, who face varying levels of regret as a result of the responsibility they

take when making a decision. After his own research

and life experiences, Moe decides to dump all of his

stocks and buy gold. Larry also sells his stocks for

gold, but he did this after a recommendation of a
financial advisor. Curly always invests in gold,

and continues to do so. Moe, Larry, and Curly,

all hold gold, but have done so for different reasons:

Moe as a result of his own research, Larry as a result

of a financial advisor, and Curly merely sticking to

his usual approach. Did they make the correct decision?

Well hindsight being what it is tells us that they did
as the market has dumped recently. But let’s say that

the market soared and they missed out. They may have

been better to invest in stocks, and may now regret their

decision. Who do you think feels the worst out of the
three stooges? It all comes down to who feels the most

responsible for his actions. In this case Moe would feel

the most regret since he based his decision on his own analysis.

Larry would probably feel anger toward his financial advisor

rather than regret, and Curly may

feel indifferent since he rarely invests in stocks anyway. We feel the

most regret when we break away from our usual approach to decision

making and feel responsible for it.

Does regret influence decisions? For some it does, and

the obvious way to avoid regret is to merely stop making decisions

and stay out of whatever it is you are doing for awhile. But there

are other ways of protecting yourself from feeling regret. You can

seek out advice of others and secretly blame them for giving you bad

advice. You can stick with your usual approach to decision making,

and avoid taking chances; you can restrict the vehicles you use to make

a decision, since making a change that does not pay off could possibly

increase your feelings of regret. In the end, it’s not useful to allow

avoidance of regret to influence your decisions. It’s vital to be aware

of how regret can influence you.

Is everyone influenced by regret? Although there may be a general

tendency for many to feel regret after making a bad decision that was

entirely their fault, research evidence suggests that some people may

be prone to experience regret more than others. For

example, research on optimism and pessimism suggests that people who are

prone to experience disappointment and pessimism tend to think that bad

events were their fault and reflect enduring characteristics of their

personality. They are hard on themselves. In the back of their mind, they

may think, "I don't have the talent required for "X". Of course I've

made bad decisions; I'm incompetent." This predisposition to blame

themselves makes them prone to experience regret. If you are the kind of

person who is prone to self-blame, you are also prone to regret, and this

tendency may restrict your ability to trading the markets freely.

Stay with your life plan. Understand that you fail – sometimes more

than you expect but it is a part of what we do. Accept it and move on

and realize we do fall in order to pick ourselves up again. Wheather we

learn from the failure or not will determine our future of success.