Module 7 · Living with uncertainty · Lesson 5 of 5

Being wrong, changing your mind, making peace

Every decision made without certainty will sometimes be wrong. That is not a flaw in you.

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The idea

If you make decisions without certainty — and everyone does — some of them will turn out wrong. This is not a sign of poor judgement. A decision can be well made and still have a bad outcome, because of luck or information nobody could have had.

Being able to say “I was wrong” and change your mind is a strength, not a weakness. People who cannot admit mistakes keep defending decisions long after the evidence has turned, which is how small errors become large ones.

Making peace with imperfect decisions means judging your past choices by what you knew at the time, learning what you can, and letting the rest go. You are allowed to wish something had gone differently without concluding that you are the problem.

Why it matters

Fear of being wrong makes people avoid decisions, cling to bad ones, or punish themselves for outcomes they could not control. A calmer relationship with being wrong makes you both braver and better at correcting course.

See it happen

Siobhan persuaded her family to move to a new town for a better school. A year later, her daughter is unhappy there and wants to move back.

The first read

She feels she made a terrible decision that has hurt her daughter, and keeps going over what she should have seen.

With this idea

She looks at what she knew then: the school’s results, her daughter’s agreement at the time. The decision was reasonable. She says openly to her daughter that it has not worked as hoped, and together they look at options, including another school nearby.

What changed

She judged the decision by what she knew at the time, admitted it had not worked, and moved on to fixing it.

Easy to get wrong

• Judging past decisions with knowledge you only have now. Hindsight makes things look obvious that were not.
• Refusing to change your mind to avoid admitting a mistake. The longer you wait, the more it usually costs.

Different perspectives

Reasonable people disagree here. None of these is presented as the final word.

Separate decisions from outcomes

Thinking in bets means judging a decision by its reasoning and information, since good decisions can have bad outcomes through luck.

Outcomes still carry lessons

Others caution that “it was just bad luck” can become an excuse; a pattern of poor outcomes may point to a flaw in how decisions are made.

What this rests on

Practical wisdom. A widely used way of working. Useful to try — not a scientific law.

• Annie Duke — Thinking in Bets (2018) — A former professional poker player on separating the quality of a decision from the luck of its outcome, and on keeping a record of your reasoning.
• Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner — Superforecasting (2015) — Research on people who forecast world events unusually well: they think in probabilities and update their views in small, frequent steps.

Try it: Then and now

1. Pick a decision you regret.
2. Write what you knew at the time you made it.
3. Write what you know now that you could not have known then.
4. Write one thing you have learned, and one thing you can let go of.

Reflect

• Which past decision are you still judging with knowledge you did not have then?
• What is one view you have changed your mind about, and how did it feel?

Use it in the coming days

Write a short “then and now” entry in your journal this week about one decision you regret, and end it with what you will carry forward.

Where to do it: My Journal

The journal is a private place to make peace with a decision on the page.