Everyone wants to achieve something and to achieve that we put in some investment. Investment can be anything like money, time, effort, resources, and despite those investments, you might not get the results you are looking for or you have changed your mind.
We get emotionally attached to such investment and they are hard to move on from even when all the reasonable and wise factors say so. These investment of time/ resources/ money that keep you stuck from moving ahead are what called sunk costs.
Knowing when to give up is as crucial as working hard to achieve your goals. Let’s start with understanding this with an example.
You spend 2 years and $40,000 for a masters in history degree and after completing it and doing a job for 6 months you realize that this isn’t something you wanna pursue and find an opportunity that might be really good for you in the future like learning how to make animation videos.
Here the Sunk Cost is 2yrs and 40K. So as Seth Godin said, “Ignore the Sunk Costs” and move ahead with what’s best for you now. The sunk cost was a gift to you from your former self and it’s absolutely fine to move on towards better opportunities.
But know the difference between when to give up vs when to work even harder. There might be a major possibility that you aren’t getting the results you want because either you are not working hard enough or your expectations were too big to be real.
I know there is a thin line between the both and you can only find it by experimenting and practicing.
Remember there is always a new opportunity tomorrow.