how to stop ruminating on past decisions

On average, an adult makes 35,000 conscious decisions a day.

We make these decisions for a variety of reasons–we choose in hopes of finding joy, to better ourselves, to live in line with our values, etc. There’s always a reason behind our choices even if we are not consciously aware of what it is. But even though we have our reasons for initially making a decision, the outcome of the decision is not always as we hoped.

Maybe you chose to bring your laptop to a cafe, and it ended up getting stolen. Or you decided to wear cute shoes on a date, and now your feet are in immense pain. Or you moved to a city, and you hate it. Or you decided to wait to go to the doctor for that pain in your back, and now it turns out it’s something serious. 

With 35,000 decisions being made in a day, we’re bound to get some wrong. Things don’t always work out. But because sometimes the aftermath of our decisions can be painful, some people respond by ruminating endlessly on their past choices and beating themselves up 

I shouldn’t have made that choice. Why did I make that decision? How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I think this would happen? If only I chose differently!

Take Mary’s* story as an example. After going to grad school to become a physical therapist, she started working as a PT, and she realized this job was not a good fit for her. The physical demands of the job started to take a toll on her body, and she felt burnout from her inability to provide quality care to her huge caseload of patients. Mary wanted to change careers, but she couldn’t believe she had chosen to go to PT school, wasting all that time, energy, and money. Ruminating on this decision, Mary was extremely angry with herself for making such a “dumb” decision. Not only was she filled with self-blame, Mary also was consumed with anxiety about her future; because she had made a bad decision before, she was so scared of making another wrong decision. I’ve already wasted so much time–what if the next thing I choose also fails? Should I just stay in this job that I hate? What if people judge me for not being able to stick with anything? 

Mary understood her choice to become a PT and the outcomes that followed as something she had done wrong, as something she was at fault for, as something she could’ve avoided. And Mary was so scared she would mess up again with her next decision. 

For those of you who’ve ruminated on past choices before, you know how miserable this process can be. Rumination takes you out of the present and traps you in the past. And it’s often accompanied by intense feelings of guilt, anxiety, and insecurity. 

Why we ruminate

So why do we do it? Why are we so hard on ourselves? 

We ruminate and blame ourselves for past decisions that didn’t work out because it offers an illusion of control. We want to believe that what happens in our lives is fully up to us: if we just make the right choices, we can live our ideal lives. So when the unideal happens, it’s because we didn’t choose right. It’s all our fault. This view allows us to maintain a sense that life is controllable. 

But this view is a lie.

The inaccuracy and unfairness of rumination

What happens next is not and will never be in our full knowledge and control. While we can influence our lives, we never have total autonomy. We can never predict with absolute certainty what the future holds. 

And therefore, not only is blaming ourselves for past decisions inaccurate, it’s also incredibly unfair. 

We always make decisions with limited knowledge of the future. But often once we regret our decisions, we judge ourselves with knowledge that we didn’t have when we were making the decision. When applying for PT school, Mary didn’t know being a PT would be such a bad fit. She didn’t know how hard it would be on her body or that she would experience extreme burnout. It was only through becoming a PT that Mary could learn these things. But once she no longer wanted to stay in this job, she was furious with herself for her past choice. How could I have made this decision? What a waste! I should’ve known better. Mary judged her past self with information her past self did not have. Obviously if past Mary knew how rough this job would be for her, she wouldn’t have chosen it. But it was only through doing the job that she could discover these things. 

We always make decisions with limited knowledge of the future. So when we realize later on that our decisions did not turn out in the way we had hoped, we have to be both kind and realistic with our past selves, who couldn’t have fully known what was to come.

How to protect against future rumination

Pediatric Oncolologist, Ray Barfield, has a strategy for protecting against future decision rumination and self-blame. As a cancer doctor, Barfield journeys with families as they make impossible decisions: Should our kid get the risky surgery? Should we try chemotherapy or radiation? Is it time to accept that treatment doesn’t seem to be working? Barfield has witnessed families make one decision and then come to regret it when the outcomes prove unideal or even devastating, questioning or blaming themselves for ever making that decision in the first place. Therefore, on the day that a decision is made, Barfield has the decision maker write on a piece of paper, “I made this decision on this day because _____.” This paper can serve as a reminder that we often make decisions with good reason amidst our limited knowledge of the future, and therefore this paper can aid you in being kinder to yourself later on if the decision does not work out. 

I wonder if Mary would have ruminated less on her decision to go to PT school if she remembered why she chose it in the first place. Mary wanted a job where she could improve people’s lives, she found the human body and the way all its parts work together fascinating, and she wanted a stable job where she was confident there would always be good job prospects. Mary’s decision made sense, even if it didn’t turn out as she had hoped. 

If we make 35,000 conscious decisions in a day, that means we will make millions of decisions throughout our lifetimes. Some of those decisions are bound to go awry. But those failed decisions are not an indicator that you failed. All a failed decision means about you is that you’re a decision-maker, one who makes choices with limited knowledge on what the future holds. 

*This is a fictitious character based on a compilation of personal experience and client observations.