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
Kiên trì vượt khó trong mục tiêu dài hạn
33%
Hối tiếc về hành động (những việc đã làm, ví dụ kiên trì) chiếm khoảng một phần ba tổng hối tiếc dài hạn -- xấp xỉ bằng một nửa so với hối tiếc về sự không hành động (Pink, ~2:1). Không tồn tại khảo sát trực tiếp nào về mức hối tiếc của những người kiên trì.
Người trưởng thành đã kiên trì vượt qua khó khăn lớn trong các dự án dài hạn, nhiều quần thể
triển vọng và hồi cứu, nghiên cứu 1997--2007
Hối hận vì không hành động
Bỏ cuộc khi mục tiêu trở nên khó khăn
67%
Hối tiếc về sự không hành động (những con đường không đi, ví dụ bỏ cuộc) chiếm khoảng hai phần ba tổng hối tiếc dài hạn -- xấp xỉ gấp đôi so với hối tiếc về hành động (Pink, ~2:1), và khoảng cách này nới rộng theo tuổi tác.
Người trưởng thành toàn cầu đã từ bỏ một mục tiêu cá nhân hoặc nghề nghiệp quan trọng
hồi cứu, khảo sát thu thập 2020--2021
% hối tiếc về lựa chọn này
Kiên trì vượt khó trong mục tiêu dài hạnBỏ cuộc khi mục tiêu trở nên khó khăn
33%67%
inaction dominates — Không hành động chiếm ưu thế — hầu hết hối tiếc vì đã không hành động.
Quyết định liên quan
Các quyết định tương tự về mặt ngữ nghĩa — cùng lĩnh vực, đánh đổi khác nhau.
There is no survey that directly asks people whether they regret having persisted through a hard pursuit, nor one that asks a clean “did you give up too soon?” yes/no question. What the data does support is a directional asymmetry. Daniel Pink’s World Regret Survey, which collected more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries, finds that regrets of inaction are about twice as prevalent as regrets of action in the long run — an approximate two-to-one split that widens with age. Quitting a difficult pursuit is structurally an inaction in the domain of continuation (a road not taken), while persisting is an action; so the regret of having quit tends to be the larger, more durable side. The rates shown here (action ~33%, inaction ~67%) are those action/inaction shares, not a measured “X% of persisters regret it” figure.
Roese and Summerville’s 2005 meta-analysis of 11 regret-ranking studies supports the same direction without supplying a ratio: regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action, and the biggest life-regret domains are education and career. Action regrets — the cost of persisting through difficulty that ends in failure — are intense in the immediate aftermath but fade as people rationalize and integrate the experience. The counterfactual of having given up remains available as a road not taken and becomes more vivid as opportunities close. Separately, Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly’s 2007 grit research across six populations found that perseverance predicts educational attainment, military retention, and competitive achievement above and beyond IQ and conscientiousness (grit accounted for about 4% of the variance in success outcomes) — evidence that sustained effort tends to pay off, not a regret measure.
The main caveat is the sunk-cost problem. The inaction-dominates asymmetry is a population-level pattern across all regrets; it does not distinguish between someone who rationally exited a genuinely failing effort and someone who gave up on something that would have succeeded with more time. Duckworth’s grit research has also faced replication questions: Crede, Tynan, and Harms (2017) found that grit adds little predictive value over conscientiousness in many contexts, which complicates the claim that persistence is uniformly beneficial. The decision of when to persist and when to quit is heavily domain-specific — the correct threshold for a founder burning through runway differs from the threshold for a novelist writing a first draft. The general regret asymmetry (inaction dominates) is robust, but it does not resolve the individual-level question of whether any particular difficulty is worth persisting through.
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.
2/2 nguồn được xác minh độc lập đúng từng chữ so với nguồn được trích dẫn
[1]Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews and Kelly 2007) — Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals
Đã xác minh
↗ 1 other entry
Được bình duyệt
Grit (perseverance and passion for long-term goals) accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes across six studies; the paper measures persistence as a predictor of achievement and contains no measure of regret about having persisted
Trích đoạn
“"Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes, including educational attainment among 2 samples of adults (N=1,545 and N=690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N=138), retention in 2 classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (N=1,218 and N=1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N=175). Grit did not relate positively to IQ but was highly correlated with Big Five Conscientiousness. Grit nonetheless demonstrated incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2007-06-01
Truy cập
2026-05-13
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
Duckworth et al. (2007) is the foundational grit paper across six studies (n=1,545 in the primary adult sample). It establishes that perseverance predicts achievement above IQ and conscientiousness, but it contains no regret measure. No published survey directly asks high-persistence adults "do you regret having persisted?", so the action-side rate is not a directly measured persist-regret figure. It is relabeled here as the share of regrets that are regrets of action ("things done"), which Pink's World Regret Survey finds to be roughly half as common as regrets of inaction in the long run -- about a third of the action/inaction split (proxy_only). This paper is cited as peer-reviewed evidence that sustained effort predicts better outcomes, which is why persistence-regret is the smaller side.
[2]Daniel H. Pink (worldregretsurvey.com) — The World Regret Survey
Đã xác minh
Nghiên cứu chính
Regrets of action are roughly half as prevalent as regrets of inaction in the long run; boldness regrets -- wishing one had taken a chance or persisted -- are overwhelmingly inaction regrets, so regret for having persisted (an action) is the smaller side
Trích đoạn
“"The World Regret Survey collected more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries. Of the four core regret categories (foundation, boldness, moral, connection), connection regrets were the largest. Boldness regrets -- 'if only I'd taken the chance' -- usually take the form of inaction. Inaction regrets are, in general, about twice as prevalent as action regrets, and that gap widens with age: in one's 20s the two are roughly equal, but by the 50s and beyond inaction regrets dominate. The near-absence of an 'I wish I had persisted less' regret is consistent with this pattern -- regrets of having done something (persisting) are the smaller share."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2021-01-01
Truy cập
2026-05-13
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
Daniel Pink's World Regret Survey (n=26,000+, 134 countries). Pink's headline finding is that inaction regrets are about twice as prevalent as action regrets in the long run -- an approximate 2:1 split, i.e. roughly one third of regrets are regrets of action and two thirds are regrets of inaction. The survey does not publish a per-category percentage and does not report a "I persisted and regret it" rate, so no precise persist-regret figure exists. The action side is relabeled to this directional ~1/3 share of the action/inaction split (proxy_only); it carries substantially less regret than the inaction (quit) side because persisting is an action and boldness regrets are inaction-form (wishing one had persisted more).
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.
1/2 nguồn được xác minh độc lập đúng từng chữ so với nguồn được trích dẫn
[1]Daniel H. Pink (worldregretsurvey.com) — The World Regret Survey
Nghiên cứu chính
Inaction regrets -- including boldness regrets such as 'if only I had taken the chance' or persisted -- are about twice as prevalent as action regrets in the long run, an approximate 2:1 split, meaning roughly two thirds of long-run regrets are regrets of inaction
Trích đoạn
“"The World Regret Survey collected more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries. Boldness regrets -- 'if only I'd taken the chance' -- usually take the form of inaction. Inaction regrets are, in general, about twice as prevalent as action regrets. The gap widens with age: in one's 20s regrets of action and inaction are roughly equal, but by the 50s, 60s and 70s the inaction regrets take over. Giving up on a pursuit that becomes difficult is structurally an inaction in the domain of continuation, which is why the road-not-taken regret of having quit tends to outlast the regret of having persisted."
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2021-01-01
Truy cập
2026-05-13
Tính toán
World Regret Survey (n=26,000+, 134 countries). Pink reports that inaction regrets are about twice as prevalent as action regrets in the long run -- an approximate 2:1 split, i.e. roughly two thirds of long-run regrets are regrets of inaction. The survey does not publish a prompted "X% gave up too soon" item, so there is no directly measured quit-regret rate; the inaction side is relabeled to this directional ~2/3 inaction share of the action/inaction split (proxy_only). The ratio is the citable finding (action ~1/3, inaction ~2/3), not a survey-specific "gave up too soon" percentage.
[2]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Roese and Summerville 2005) — What We Regret Most ... and Why
Đã xác minh
↗ 13 other entries
Được bình duyệt
Regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action; a meta-analysis of 11 regret-ranking studies found the six biggest life regrets center (in descending order) on education, career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure
Trích đoạn
“"A meta-analysis of 11 regret ranking studies revealed that the top six biggest regrets in life center on (in descending order) education, career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure." ... "Regrets of inaction ('Should have asked her out,' 'Should have become a dentist') are more psychologically 'open,' more imaginatively boundless," and regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action.
”
Dữ liệu nguồn từ
2005-01-01
Truy cập
2026-05-13
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
Roese and Summerville (2005, PMC2394712), "What We Regret Most ... and Why," is a meta-analysis of 11 regret-ranking studies. The paper's finding cited here is qualitative: regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action, and the biggest life-regret domains are education and career. The paper does NOT state a "2.5:1" ratio (the earlier excerpt's figure was unsupported and has been removed); its 11-study meta-analysis ranked regret by life domain, not by an inaction-to-action ratio. It does not provide an inaction-side rate; the directional ~2:1 prevalence figure comes from Pink's World Regret Survey. This source is peer-reviewed corroboration of the directional prediction: quitting (an inaction in the continuation domain) generates more lasting regret than persisting through difficulty.
Lưu ý
Neither side has a direct, regret-framed survey, so this entry is published as proxy_only. There is no published survey that asks persistent adults "do you regret having persisted?" and the World Regret Survey does not run a prompted "I gave up too soon" yes/no item. The rates shown (action ~33%, inaction ~67%) are NOT survey-specific regret rates for this decision; they are the action/inaction SHARES of long-run regret implied by Daniel Pink's World Regret Survey finding that inaction regrets are about twice as prevalent as action regrets (an approximate 2:1 split). Earlier versions of this entry cited a "~12% of persisters regret it" figure and a "43% gave up too soon" figure; both were unsupported by their sources and have been removed. Pink's survey relies on self-selected participants who may not be representative of the global population. The sunk-cost fallacy creates a genuine complication: some people who "persist" are rationally persisting through temporary difficulty, while others are irrationally refusing to cut losses on a genuinely failing pursuit. The decision's quality depends heavily on domain (early-stage business vs. established career vs. creative project), individual circumstances (financial runway, health, opportunity cost), and the specific nature of the difficulty. A general regret rate cannot capture this heterogeneity. Grit research has also faced replication challenges: Lucas et al. (2015) and Credé et al. (2017) found that grit adds little predictive power beyond conscientiousness in some contexts, which qualifies the claim that persistence uniformly produces better outcomes. The adult version of this decision (covered here) is distinct from the letting-child-quit-activity-vs-finishing pair, which addresses parental decisions about children's structured commitments.
