You’ve heard the phrase, “don’t throw good money after bad?”
It basically means once you realize the thing you’ve invested in is not what you thought it would be AND likely never will be, don’t keep putting new money into it just because of what you’ve already invested. Take your losses or your “sunk costs” (the money you’ve already sunk into it) and move on.
Rational as it sounds, it can be a brutally hard thing to do, stirring up everything from shame and blame to guilt and futility. Most of us understand why, beyond the emotional baggage, this is sound logic when it comes to business. It releases you from continuing to lose more time and money on something that will never pan out, and frees your resources for new avenues of possibility.
But, what about life beyond business and career? Things get more interesting when you apply the same principal—never let sunk costs guide your decision about how and where to invest yourself moving forward—to other parts of your life.
What if you applied this to relationships and love? Should you “keep trying” in a five-year relationship simply because you’ve got 5 years of blood, sweat, heart, soul and tears already invested, once it becomes clear it will never be what you thought it might be? What about a mastery quest or career? Should you stay the course simply because to walk away now would feel like “you’d wasted so much money, time and life?” Or, is there a radically different story to be told here?
That’s what today’s Good Life Project Riff is all about.
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