Be Accountable, Avoid Regret

Accountability: anything or anyone that helps us gain mental leverage to achieve the results we desire.

—The Accountability Stop

How do you know what projects are the most important to you? Which project should you work on and what project can be delayed a little?

My accountability buddy asked me this the other day regarding my priorities for the week. I said that I would like to prioritize writing this blog article. However, I immediately contradicted myself, saying that my highest “regret factor” would point me to a different project—script writing and songwriting for a second musical. That launched us into a discussion of how future regret can factor into priorities.

It may be obvious, but a project with a high regret factor is one that we envision would cause the most regret in the future. If we only consider what’s important or urgent to us today, high regret factor projects might not even make the list. So it’s a useful mental exercise to consider our projects from a regret factor perspective.

I did not come up with “regret factor” first, of course. A search for “regret factor” immediately brought up this article by Marc Muchnick Ph.D. in Psychology Today**.

Imagined Sadness

The regret factor is related to the craze of “finding your why.” As I’ve said before, having a strong why, while good, doesn’t guarantee that we’ll work on the thing we believe strongly in. 

Here’s a suggested mental exercise to identify your highest regret factor projects:

1. Think about your life 10 years from now.
2. Think about having not accomplished each goal or project you’re considering or are currently working on.
3. Think about your life having accomplished each of the same goals or projects.

Do any of the projects give you a “meh” feeling when you consider them as un-accomplished ten years from now? Those are your low regret-factor projects. They don’t have a strong motivation behind them. The projects that elicit a sad response in your mind when you think they might not be accomplished in the future are your strong regret factor projects. 

Lean into Connection

If the project relates to a significant relationship in our lives, its regret-factor naturally goes up:

• Refurbishing an old car might be an interesting project. But if the car is to be a graduation present for your son who has worked very hard at school, its regret factor increases.
• Working on a puzzle might seem trivial. Working on a puzzle with your young granddaughter can be high-quality and irreplaceable bonding time together.
• Writing a memoir of childhood might feel selfish. Writing a memoir with your sister who has a terminal disease has a very high regret factor.
• Framing your great grandmother’s vintage travel photos is nice. But framing them as wedding presents for her great great grandchildren could be priceless.

The biggest regrets we have in life are almost always associated with other people and the times we didn’t build relationships with them. That’s something to remember when arranging our priorities. 

Don’t Discard, Prioritize

As I mentioned at the beginning, I was interested in my “regret factor” in a discussion of what projects to prioritize. The other projects don’t go away. They just have a lower priority. Accountability is good at keeping several projects going at the same time. I typically have several projects going at once. They can feel equally important. Allocating appropriate time to each based on something like a “regret factor,” I can keep working on all the things I enjoy and still avoid regret.

What’s Your Account?

Do you factor potential regret into your decision making? When you have, how have you felt afterwards?

**One oddity about the Psychology Today article. Gary said he loved “spending quality time with his children.” But his regret was that he had let a college girlfriend go even though they had a deep connection. That choice would have resulted in a completely different family and different children! Gary didn’t mention the wife he chose instead and if he regretted his life with her. So I felt a bit of conflict on how the article presents regretted decisions.