Dữ liệu đại diện — không có cuộc khảo sát trực tiếp nào về sự hối tiếc cho quyết định này. Tỷ lệ được lấy từ điểm hài lòng và dữ liệu rào cản tiếp cận thay vì câu hỏi trực tiếp về sự hối tiếc. Xem cảnh báo bên dưới.
Hối hận vì hành động
Theo đuổi sự nghiệp quyết liệt
59%
59% hối tiếc vì không ưu tiên cân bằng công việc-cuộc sống
Người lao động ở Mỹ, Anh, Pháp, Đức
hồi cứu, không có khung thời gian cố định
Hối hận vì không hành động
Ưu tiên cân bằng công việc và cuộc sống
44%
~33% hối tiếc vì không chấp nhận thêm rủi ro nghề nghiệp (proxy)
Người lao động ở Mỹ, Anh, Pháp, Đức
hồi cứu, không có khung thời gian cố định
% hối tiếc về lựa chọn này
Theo đuổi sự nghiệp quyết liệtƯu tiên cân bằng công việc và cuộc sống
59%44%
action dominates — Hành động chiếm ưu thế — hầu hết hối tiếc vì đã hành động.
Quyết định liên quan
Các quyết định tương tự về mặt ngữ nghĩa — cùng lĩnh vực, đánh đổi khác nhau.
59% of workers regret not prioritizing work-life balance, according to
Resume Now’s International Career Regrets survey of 1,000 workers across
four countries. On the other side, 44% — “more than 4 in 10” — regret
not trying to make a full career change, the closest career-underinvestment
figure the same survey reports. The resulting roughly 1.3:1 ratio favors
action-regret — an unusual outcome in the regret literature, where Gilovich
and Medvec’s temporal pattern predicts that inaction regrets dominate over
the long term. Career overinvestment appears to be one of the rare domains
where the pattern inverts, likely because the opportunity costs are uniquely
irreversible: you cannot retroactively attend your child’s first steps.
Deloitte’s workplace burnout survey quantifies the mechanism. Seventy-seven
percent of professionals report experiencing burnout at their current job,
and 83% say it has negatively impacted their personal relationships. The
APA’s 2024 Work in America survey corroborates: 45% of workers report
working more hours than they want to, and 67% report experiencing at
least one burnout-related outcome, such as low energy or lack of
motivation, in the past month. The Harvard Study of Adult Development —
an 87-year longitudinal study — found that relationship satisfaction at
age 50 predicted physical health at 80 more reliably than cholesterol
levels. These converging datasets, from different methodologies and
timeframes, all point the same direction.
The main caveat is measurement asymmetry. The 59% and 44% figures come from
different survey questions, not from a clean forced-choice between career
and balance. A respondent could plausibly endorse both regrets
simultaneously. The 44% inaction figure (“not making a full career change”)
is a proxy for career-underinvestment regret, not a direct measure of
regretting a balance-first choice. The Harvard Grant Study tracked an elite,
all-male cohort that entered Harvard in the late 1930s — a population with
more career optionality than most. The Deloitte burnout figure (77%)
measures stress prevalence, not regret. The directional finding
(career-overinvestment regret exceeds career-underinvestment regret) is
robust across all sources; the precise 1.3:1 ratio is an artifact of
combining non-identical survey items and should be treated as indicative,
not calibrated.
Nguồn: hành động
Sổ cái xác nhận
Mỗi con số dưới đây là những gì mỗi nguồn đã báo cáo, cùng với trích dẫn nguyên văn mà chúng tôi dựa vào và cách chúng tôi đưa ra con số của mình. Nhấp vào bất kỳ liên kết nào để xác minh trực tiếp.
2/3 nguồn được xác minh độc lập đúng từng chữ so với nguồn được trích dẫn
[1]Resume Now — The Road Not Taken: Greatest Career Regrets Revealed
Đã xác minh
↗ 7 other entries
Nghiên cứu chính
59% of workers regret not prioritizing work-life balance in their career
Trích đoạn
“"Top career regrets include not asking for a pay increase (60%), not prioritizing work-life balance in one's career (59%), staying at a job too long (58%), and not negotiating salary when taking a job (58%). Two-thirds of Gen Z and Millennial workers regret not prioritizing work-life balance."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2024-01-10
Truy cập
2026-04-26
Xác minh
Trích đoạn đã được tải lại độc lập và xác nhận đúng từng chữ so với nguồn được trích dẫn trong quá trình kiểm định căn cứ của chúng tôi.
Tính toán
Resume Now International Career Regrets survey of 1,000 workers in US, UK, France, and Germany (January 2024). The 59% figure captures respondents who identified not prioritizing work-life balance as a career regret — effectively measuring action-side regret among those who pursued career at the expense of balance.
[2]Deloitte — Workplace Burnout Survey
Nghiên cứu chính
77% of workers have experienced burnout at their current job; 91% say unmanageable stress negatively impacts work quality
Trích đoạn
“"77% of respondents have experienced employee burnout at their current job, with more than half citing more than one occurrence. 91% of respondents say that having an unmanageable amount of stress or frustration negatively impacts the quality of their work. 83% say burnout from work negatively impacts their personal relationships."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2024-01-15
Truy cập
2026-04-26
Tính toán
Deloitte surveyed 1,000 full-time US professionals. The 77% burnout prevalence and 83% relationship-impact figure provide quantitative support for the career-overinvestment regret mechanism. While burnout is not identical to regret, the 83% who report damaged personal relationships directly parallels the "worked too hard" regret pattern. This replaces the Bronnie Ware qualitative source with quantitative survey data.
[3]American Psychological Association (APA) / The Harris Poll — 2024 Work in America Survey: Psychological Safety in the Changing Workplace
Đã xác minh
Nghiên cứu chính
45% of employed US adults say they have to work more hours per week than they want to; 67% report experiencing at least one outcome often associated with workplace burnout in the past month
Trích đoạn
“"More than two in five (45%) employed adults said they have to work more hours per week than they want to. … A majority (67%) of workers reported experiencing, in the last month, at least one outcome often associated with workplace burnout, such as lack of interest, motivation, or low energy, feeling lonely or isolated, and a lack of effort at work."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2024-06-14
Truy cập
2026-07-03
Xác minh
Trích đoạn đã được tải lại độc lập và xác nhận đúng từng chữ so với nguồn được trích dẫn trong quá trình kiểm định căn cứ của chúng tôi.
Tính toán
APA's Work in America Survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA among 2,027 employed US adults, fielded March 25 - April 3, 2024, released June 14, 2024. Provides further corroborating quantitative support for the career-overinvestment regret mechanism alongside the Deloitte burnout figures: nearly half of workers are already working more than they want to, and two-thirds report at least one burnout symptom in the past month.
Nguồn: không hành động
Sổ cái xác nhận
Mỗi con số dưới đây là những gì mỗi nguồn đã báo cáo, cùng với trích dẫn nguyên văn mà chúng tôi dựa vào và cách chúng tôi đưa ra con số của mình. Nhấp vào bất kỳ liên kết nào để xác minh trực tiếp.
[1]Resume Now — The Road Not Taken: Greatest Career Regrets Revealed↗ 7 other entries
Nghiên cứu chính
44% regret not making a full career change (more than 4 in 10)
Trích đoạn
“"Not making a full career change – 44% … More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2024-01-10
Truy cập
2026-07-10
Tính toán
Same Resume Now survey (n=1,000). The cited page lists "Not making a full career change – 44%" and narrates it as "More than 4 in 10 regret not trying to make a career change." Used here as a proxy for inaction-side (career-underinvestment) regret: respondents who prioritized stability or balance and later regretted not making a bolder career move. Note this is a distinct multi-select item from the action-side "work-life balance" question, not a forced-choice counterpart (see caveats). The page's own "one-third (34%)" figure refers to those with NO career regrets, so it is not usable as an inaction-regret rate; the prior "over one-third wished they had taken more risks" and "nearly 98 percent" excerpts did not appear on the cited page and were removed.
[2]Harvard Gazette — Over nearly 80 years, Harvard study has been showing how to live a healthy and happy life
Nguồn tham khảo
Relationship quality at age 50 predicted health at 80 better than cholesterol levels
Trích đoạn
“"The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health. Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives. Those ties protect people from life's discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2017-04-11
Truy cập
2026-04-26
Tính toán
Harvard Study of Adult Development (Grant Study), an 87-year longitudinal study of 268 Harvard men begun in 1938, now directed by Robert Waldinger. Qualitative context only — this source does not ground either regret rate. The finding that relationships outperform career success as a predictor of late-life satisfaction and health lends directional support to the interpretation that those who chose balance and invested in relationships report higher life satisfaction in old age.
Lưu ý
The action and inaction rates derive from the same Resume Now survey but from different multi-select questions — "not prioritizing work-life balance" (59%) versus "not making a full career change" (44%). These are not a clean binary: a single respondent could endorse both regrets simultaneously, and many likely did. The survey did not present a forced choice between career pursuit and balance. The 59% action-regret figure likely includes people at all career-intensity levels, not only those who aggressively pursued advancement. The 44% inaction-side figure is a proxy: it measures regret over "not trying to make a career change," which only imperfectly captures the balance-prioritizer who wishes they had been more ambitious. Deloitte's burnout data quantifies the mechanism (77% burnout prevalence, 83% report damaged relationships) but measures workplace stress outcomes rather than retrospective regret per se. The Harvard Grant Study followed an elite, all-male cohort starting in 1938 — it does not generalize cleanly to contemporary mixed-gender, mixed-class populations. The action-dominance finding here is unusual in Gilovich's framework, where inaction typically dominates long-term; however, the "worked too hard" regret may represent the rare domain where action regret persists into old age because the opportunity cost (missed relationships, missed childhood milestones) is irreversible.
