People's Biggest Regrets in 2025
513: Calibrating for 2026
Good morning.
Gents and ladies we are almost there.
8 days left in 2025. This is often a mixed bag week in the work world with people either grinding to finish projects/close deals before year end or a political show face week where folks wait to clock out while looking busy.
As we look to cap off the year I wanted to provide some food for thought for those of us already coming up with our game plan for 2026.
2025 was an insane year where we saw:
Markets utterly punished hesitation and those without assets
Rate cut and Fed expectations dominated everything. Now eyes are on the 2026 nomination and where it might send us
U.S. debt crossed psychological thresholds. The US has over $38,000,000,000,000 in debt
Bitcoin re-entered the mainstream
Altcoins lagged longer than expected
AI spending exploded, profits concentrated NVDA 0.00%↑ GOOG 0.00%↑ PLTR 0.00%↑ and others went absolute sicko mode
Defense, drones, cyber, and surveillance are front and center
The Middle East remained a powder keg
Ukraine became a frozen but perpetual conflict
The U.S. election became a market catalyst
Censorship and narrative control intensified globally
Political violence skyrocketed
Trust in our institutions continued to erode fueled by Epstein stonewalls and redactions, state level healthcare scams, and media reaction to domestic unrest
White-collar layoffs reinforced insecurity with U.S. employers announcing hundreds of thousands of job cuts, heavily concentrated in tech, finance, consulting, media, and corporate services.
Gold had a historic and quietly strong year, there’s a good amount of people betting it is going over $4,600 by year end
Independent builders gained ground
2026 is going to likely be even wilder.
Between today’s post and the previous two, you should be all set for the 2026 preview/blueprint. All you have to do now is read and act:
How To Dominate in 2026
The 2026 Blueprint: Survive the Chaos, Profit From the Future
I scoured the internet all weekend, read through blogs, forums, posts, and more to come up with a list of the biggest regrets people are expressing they have in 2025.
Across all disciplines: financial health and business, their personal lives, social and relationship regrets, things they said they would do in 2025 but stopped doing in February, and more.
For example Most U.S. adults (74%) report having a financial regret in 2025, according to a new survey from Bankrate. But the regret wasn’t usually about losing money. It was about not acting at all. Not investing sooner, not cutting expenses earlier, not building a second income stream when the warning signs were obvious.
And finance was just the most measurable category.
The same story showed up elsewhere:
Relationships neglected under the excuse of “being busy.”
Health routines abandoned once momentum faded.
Businesses never started because clarity never felt complete.
Creative projects left half-finished as distractions multiplied.
Values quietly compromised for comfort, convenience, or approval.
Similar to the aim of our recent 2026 forward looking posts, today’s is an examination of what most people wish they had changed, done, or executed on in 2025. The ANSWERS themselves give some interesting color into the collective psychology of humans.
Many people are expressing the same frustrations and when they look back at 2025 they realize it was their own fault nothing changed and they fell short of what they wanted to get out of the year.
My hope is that as we power through this Christmas week and into the final hours of 2025, you are all able to glean something of value from these highlights so you can adjust for 2026 and make it your most productive and profitable year yet.
Let’s start with what I think is the single most important thing anyone should be doing or focusing on right now.
“The most common regret of the dying was wishing they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves, not the life others expected of them.”
—Bronnie Ware (Hospice care nurse)