‘I should have known.’ ‘How did I not see what would happen – it was so obvious?’ ‘How could I have ever thought this would work out?’

The outcome you don’t want is enough to deal with.

Concepts like self-sabotage, unconscious, destructive forces will make things worse. Fearing making another bad decision and with an uneasy sense that you cannot trust yourself.

A strange feature of human consciousness is that we can’t un-know anything.

Outcomes look obvious in hindsight.

Since we made the decision, all unknowns have become known. Once that has happened, we cannot imagine a state of mind where we did not know what know now.

Whether this remains as in infuriating phenomenon or morphs into something more destructive depends on how it’s understood.

Option 1: you know that you could not have known what you know now, and so you get clear of the emotional impact and move on.

Option 2: you become convinced that not knowing the outcome of the decision at the time that you made it is a sign of moral failure or lack of intelligence.

If your mind takes the second option, it will convince you of the following:

? If you torture yourself over not having known, you will do better next time. This has to do with the idea that feeling bad will lead to being better and, therefore, – feeling better.

? If you take a deep a dive into your unconscious motivations and your destructive tendencies, you will discover why you made the decision you did. Then you will avoid bad decisions in future.

None of this will work. Minds enthralled with why’s will see pain increase and clarity decrease.

You could not have known what you did not know.

A decision cannot be bad or good depending on its outcome, because the outcome is after the event. ‘I should have known’ is simply not true.

The story that comes to mind for me is to begin day trading. This is how it happened.

➺ I decided to take up day trading – I had capital and lot of knowledge in this area.

➺ I increase my account by 30% in a couple of weeks – I congratulate myself on the decision to start day trading.

➺ I blow up my account – I tell myself I should never have done this, it was stupid, delusional, blah blah blah.

The decision has not changed, the outcome has.

Just like buying ? Bitcoin was probably the best decision ever made – until it wasn’t.

It is only when decisions have a bad outcome that we soul-search and label ourselves in all kinds of unhelpful ways.

If you have made a decision that didn’t have a good outcome, clear the emotional impact and move on. That’s it

The way I did that is The Institute for Rapid Resolution Therapy, Inc.. Nothing else worked. One previous therapist wanted me to explore my subconscious motivations (useless – see above). Another told me to just ‘let it go,’ (if I could have, I would have). Another said, ‘money is just energy’

In the comments, there is a link to a podcast where Jon Connelly, PHD, MSW, LCSW clears years of intense regret over decisions I made.