There are few more pointless emotions than regret. It’s all about feeling sad over something you did – or failed to do – in the past, so by definition there’s no way you can change it. You could not think about it I suppose. If you can change an outcome you don’t like, you will do. If you can’t, regret can seem like the only option.

It’s a bit self-indulgent though, isn’t it? In the end, you’re bound to end up feeling sorry for yourself. And who does that help? Much better to resolve not to be a regretter because, in all honesty, it makes no sense.

The fact is, you have no idea what would happen if you made a different decision. Listen, if you’d taken that job after all, that now looks so perfect through your rose-tinted glasses, perhaps you’d have been so excited on your first day that you forgot to look as you crossed the road, and got hit by a car. No, I know it’s not likely, but you don’t know. The colleague at the next desk might have been a nightmare to work with, you might have been headhunted by a client and then hated that job … each example may be unlikely, but there are infinite possibilities and the ones that actually happened might not have been nearly as good as you imagine. So it’s just pointless regretting your decisions, whatever they are, because the alternative always could have been worse.

Even if you’ve gone through bad times as a result of your past decisions (which might still have been better than the alternatives, see above) well, those experiences are what made you the incredible person you are now. Without hardship or trauma or frustration or grief, we wouldn’t grow into the complex and fascinating people we all are. Take those experiences away, and you have to give up part of yourself with them. So let go of the regret, and value what you’ve learnt and who it has made you.

There is something else you can do too – not about past regrets but to avoid future ones: make really strong decisions and make them consciously. If you think through every decision you make from now on, following these Rules and any practical strategies you can find in books or online, then you will know that each decision has been the best one you could have made at the time. You’ll be able to look back and know that in the same circumstances, you would do the same thing again. You would collect the same information, consider the same options, consult the same advisors, make the same compromises, come up with the same options, set yourself the same parameters, allow your emotions the same weight, and come down in favour of the same course of action.

It’s pretty hard to regret a decision that you would still make in the same situation. You may occasionally wish things had turned out differently, but you won’t kick yourself for it.