What if I feel like I wasted my 20s?
By No Rush · Updated October 31, 2026
The short answer
Probably less than it feels. When people look back on a stretch of years, the things they never tried bother them more than the things they did. So your memory of your twenties is likely heavy on gaps. Two psychologists, Gilovich and Medvec, saw this in study after study. Choose the gap you mind most and look for a small piece of it you can still do this month.
Did I just waste my 20s?
The feeling often says more about how regret works than about your years. Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec reviewed the research on regret. Shortly after a choice, people mostly regret what they did. Over the years, what they didn't do starts to weigh more. Looking back at a whole decade, the missed chances stand out, and what you did do fades into the background.
What do people regret most?
Neal Roese and Amy Summerville combined 11 studies in which people ranked their regrets. Education came first, then work, love, parenting, the self and free time. In their own experiments, regret was strongest in the areas where people saw the most chances to change something. So a strong regret often points to a part of life that is still open.
How do I stop regretting my 20s?
You can't go back, so the question becomes what the regret is still useful for. Write down the one thing you're most sorry you didn't do. Then think of the smallest piece of it that would fit into next week, maybe an hour, maybe one phone call. In the work of Roese and Summerville, regret was strongest where some chance was still left, so look for the piece that is still within reach.
In the No Rush app
Under Where are you stuck, you can tap Everyone around me is moving forward, and I'm not. Then the app sets other people aside for a moment, and first looks at what's yours, apart from what you see in others.
No Rush app
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Sources
- Gilovich & Medvec (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological Review, 102(2), 379-395. doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.379
- Roese & Summerville (2005). What we regret most... and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(9), 1273-1285. doi.org/10.1177/0146167205274693
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