--- title: Live Without Regrets: What Are the Top 5 Career Regrets? description: This can be a checklist of what not to do canonical: https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/ author: Eric Barker article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-02T04:01:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T07:56:40.969Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Top 5 Career Regrets og:description: This can be a checklist of what not to do og:url: https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd85ad92581919490/6986a670f983e71a8904ffa3/184235924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4902 og:image:height: 2757 og:image:alt: 184235924 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Top 5 Career Regrets twitter:description: This can be a checklist of what not to do twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd85ad92581919490/6986a670f983e71a8904ffa3/184235924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Live Without Regrets: What Are the Top 5 Career Regrets? > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=441c892b-c837-49b3-af8f-69efe81c2f9b&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Oct 2, 2014 4:01 AM UTC  Guilty businesswoman behind laptop Guilty businesswoman behind laptop Peter Dazeley—Getty Images by [Eric Barker](https://time.com/author/eric-barker/) ## Eric Barker Oct 2, 2014 4:01 AM UTC ## How can you live without regrets? To live without regrets, first you need to know what the most common ones are. Over at [Harvard Business Review](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/12/the%5Ftop%5Ffive%5Fcareer%5Fregrets.html), [Daniel Gulati](https://twitter.com/danielgulati) discusses his informal study of people’s biggest regrets about their career. He talked to professionals who ranged in age and represented a variety of different industries but five ideas came up again and again: ## **1\. I wish I hadn’t taken the job for the money.** “By far the biggest regret of all came from those who opted into high-paying but ultimately dissatisfying careers.” ## **2\. I wish I had quit earlier.** “Almost uniformly, those who had actually quit their jobs to pursue their passions wished they had done so earlier.” ## **3\. I wish I had the confidence to start my own business.** “A recent study found that 70% of workers wished their current job would help them with starting a business in the future, yet only 15% said they had what it takes to actually venture out on their own.” ## **4\. I wish I had used my time at school more productively.** “Although more students are attending college, many of the group’s participants wished they had thoughtfully parlayed their school years into a truly rewarding first job.” ## **5\. I wish I had acted on my career hunches.** “Several individuals recounted windows of opportunity in their careers, or as one professional described, ‘now-or-never moments.’” **What else do we know about regret?** I’ve posted about research into the subject of regret before. So what do we regret the most? * You’re more likely to [regret the things you didn’t do](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-do-we-regret-the-most) than the things you did. (The split is about [75/25](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-are-we-most-likely-to-regret).) * [Education was the biggest inducer of regret](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-do-we-regret-most-why), followed by career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure. * You’re more likely to [regret purchasing things](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/what-do-we-regret-buying-what-do-we-regret-no). You’re more likely to regret _not_ purchasing experiences. **What do people regret the most before they die?** [Bronnie Ware](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140194065X/ref=as%5Fli%5Fss%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=140194065X&linkCode=as2&tag=spacforrent-20) worked in palliative care for many years, tending to people during the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. A handful of themes cropped up in the things they regretted during their final days: **1\. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”** **2\. “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”** **3\. “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”** **4\. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”** **5\. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”** To them, these were regrets. For you, this can be a checklist of what not to do. **_This piece originally appeared on_** [**_Barking Up the Wrong Tree_**](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/)**_._** **Join more than 100,000 readers.** Get a free weekly update via email [here](http://eepurl.com/o6uAD). Related posts: [At what annual salary does money stop making us happier?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/at-what-annual-salary-does-money-stop-making) [What 10 things should you do every day to improve your life?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/05/what-10-things-should-you-do-every-day-to-imp/) [What five things can make sure you never stop growing and learning?](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/11/never-stop-growing-learning/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/"},"headline":"Live Without Regrets: What Are the Top 5 Career Regrets?","datePublished":"2014-10-02T04:01:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T07:56:40.969Z","description":"This can be a checklist of what not to do","url":"https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/","keywords":["Business topic","advice"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd85ad92581919490/6986a670f983e71a8904ffa3/184235924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Barker","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/eric-barker/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd85ad92581919490/6986a670f983e71a8904ffa3/184235924.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"184235924","caption":"184235924","creditText":"Peter Dazeley—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3453785/5-career-regrets/","name":"Live Without Regrets: What Are the Top 5 Career Regrets?"}}]}] ```