Are You Stuck In The Sunk Cost Trap?
A person stays in a role two years past the point it stopped fitting. A business owner keeps funding a product line that hasn't worked in a year. Someone stays in a relationship long after they've quietly stopped believing it'll change.
Ask any of them why, and you'll rarely hear 'because it's still working.' You'll hear some version of 'because of everything I've already invested’.
That's the sunk cost trap, and it doesn't just live in spreadsheets. It lives in careers, in relationships, in the decision to keep managing a hire on whom everyone else has already given up.
The logic feels airtight from the inside. I've invested this much time, this much belief, this much of myself. Leaving now would mean it was all for nothing.
Except it wouldn't. What you already invested happened either way. It already shaped you, taught you something, built a version of you that exists whether you stay or go. The only real question left is whether staying is worth it from here, looking forward.
That reframe shifts everything. It's not 'was the past worth it.' It's 'what do I want for the future and how does this factor in?'
Here are some questions for you to consider:
Where are you staying because of what you've already put in, rather than what's actually ahead?
If you'd invested nothing so far, would you choose this today?
What would it take to let the sunk cost be sunk, and make the next decision a clean one?