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Counterfactual regret occurs when a person ruminates about alternative ways things could have happened.

Preventive coping involves anticipating and preparing for threatening future events.

Proactive coping is based on viewing future threats as challenges, which can result in personal growth.

Humans, like animals, make decisions based on prior experiences. But unlike our animal companions, we have a highly developed ability to ruminate about what has already happened and to worry about what might occur in the future.

In his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, psychologist Robert Sapolsky argues that, unlike humans, most animals experience a fight-or-flight response when faced with a stressor but immediately return to their resting state when the danger abates. In contrast, humans spend significant amounts of time replaying what happened, assessing the choices they made, and worrying about future threats and challenges. These ruminations can fall into three categories centered around the conditional word “if.”

Counterfactual regret

The first of these is referred to as counterfactual regret, or spending time thinking about alternative ways things could have gone.

When we dwell on the ways we wish things had gone, it can generate regret and sadness. Such “if only” thoughts make it difficult to accept reality and move on.

Not surprisingly, we engage in counterfactual regret most often when we believe our own actions led to an undesired outcome. While we might have been able to respond differently, knowing the best option in the moment is difficult. In the meantime, blaming ourselves or focusing on how we wish things had gone can result in depression, prolonged grief, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the second case, we focus on trying to anticipate and prepare for possible threats. Essentially, we formulate “what if ” thoughts to avoid or manage the things that come our way.

To some degree, this type of preventive coping is healthy. We all know that the economy, the climate, and our life circumstances can change rapidly. Saving money for unexpected costs, planning in advance for natural disasters, and investing resources now to obtain an education, a home, or a business can pay off.

Research suggests that preventive coping is characteristic of people who believe in their ability to influence the future through their actions. But, maintaining constant vigilance taxes psychological, financial, and social resources and can significantly diminish our ability to enjoy the present.

The third option, proactive coping, is based on the ability to accumulate the tangible and psychological resources necessary to deal with future challenges and facilitate personal growth.

Proactive copers still plan for adversity, but rather than doing so with an anxious, threat-based approach, they assume that their present efforts to accumulate resources will enable them to cope effectively when adversity occurs. Such resources include tangible goods and money, but also personal skills, social capital, and psychological resilience. Proactive copers trust their ability to solve problems as they arise, to rely on social support when appropriate, and to manage their own emotional response to stressful events. They focus on learning from the choices they have made rather than obsessing about what could have happened. Instead of seeing negative events as threats, they frame them as challenges.

This “if it happens” mindset is based on the assumption that things won’t always go your way, but that you will rise to the occasion when you need to. Proactive coping requires confidence in your ability to look for flexible solutions to problems, honesty about the things that have and haven’t worked for you, and the belief that life is about growing and exploring, not achieving perfection.

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How coping styles develop

Of course, our coping choices depend on the circumstances we face, how the people who raised us coped, and our temperament and personality. Likewise, the things we find stressful vary as a function of our personal values, needs, and stressors. Systemic inequities and resource imbalances can make effective coping difficult.

However, dealing with hardship sometimes fosters the very sorts of skills necessary to be a proactive coper. Paradoxically, people who haven’t had to struggle can sometimes become so overwhelmed by adversity that they give up rather than adjusting their expectations or their behaviors.

If you find yourself second-guessing choices you made in the past or worrying excessively about the future, it might be time to think about reassessing your coping strategies.

When you are prefacing all your thoughts in “if only” terms, it suggests that you are struggling to accept the reality of a situation, which makes it hard to move forward. Accepting the way things are allows us to create a vision of what we want to do in that reality. Constantly envisioning and trying to prevent future threats is exhausting, and there will always be unknown factors that are out of our control. When we dwell only on the way things could or should have gone, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to enjoy the present.

Focusing on future events as challenges, not threats, takes energy, but it is worth the effort. The first step is to conduct a thought inventory. Tracking how you think about the "ifs" in your life, and when they occur, can help you see how they are influencing your decisions and whether there are alternative ways to approach the problems. Life is full of uncertainty, but managing the "ifs" in proactive ways is a strategy that can benefit us all.

Sapolsky, R.M. (2004) Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping. Henry Holt and Company.

van Dijk, Eric & Zeelenberg, Marcel, 2005. "On the psychology of 'if only': Regret and the comparison between factual and counterfactual outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 152-160, July. Retrieved from: https://ideas.repec.org/s/eee/jobhdp.html

Ersen, Ö., & Bilgiç, R. (2018). The effect of proactive and preventive coping styles on personal and organizational outcomes: Be proactive if you want good outcomes. Cogent Psychology, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2018.1492865

APA. 2017. What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Retrieved from: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-beha…

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