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Sunk Lost Fallacy

The Sunk Cost Fallacy, also known as the Sunk Cost Trap, is the "tendency for people to irrationally follow through on an activity that is not meeting their expectations. This is because of the time and/or money they have already invested." according to investopedia. This is a rather well known phenomenon but today I would like to talk about the Sunk Lost Fallacy.

So what is the Sunk Lost Fallacy? It is the tendency for people to irrationally give up on doing something because they have already failed to a tiny or irrelevant degree.

One example is planning to wake up at 7am (not a terribly difficult feat but a challenge for some nonetheless) but then when the alarm rings you are slow to stir and only manage to close the alarm by 7:02. Now that it is 7:02 you have failed and so will just wake up at 7:30am (your usual time) and try again tomorrow.

Another example could be attempting to follow a new diet but then just a few days in it's a colleague's birthday and they bring a delicious chocolate cake and you cannot resist a slice. Rather than living with this mistake and going back to your diet, you may think that you've failed and go right back to your old ways.

Both examples describe very minor failures and rather than accepting the minor setback, they describe the person giving up altogether. In reality the person could have just gotten up at 7:02 or gone back to their diet but seeing as they failed by a little bit, they thought any continuation would but pointless.

Should we give up because of a minor setback (as per the Sunk Lost Fallacy)? No

Should we continue to pour resources into a failing project (as per the Sunk Cost Fallacy)? Also No.

So what should we do? Ultimately we need a balance between knowing when to accept defeat but more importantly, knowing that we are far further from defeat than we realise. If you get up at 7:29 the next day then that's a win - perhaps you've not reached your goal yet but you are a step closer today than you were yesterday. If you say "No" to that extra biscuit then that's also a win.

Everyone has their own challenges but, I know that personally, I suffer a lot more from Sunk Lost than Sunk Cost.

Thanks for reading.
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