Understanding sunk costs and knowing how to stop losses in time is a necessary ability to achieve su

There is such a shocking story in the novel "Wolf Totem".

Local people will set up a powerful trap on the grassland to capture wild animals, but wolves are rarely caught.

This is not because the wolf is very smart, but because if the wolf's leg is clamped, it will bite off all the bones and tendons of the leg and escape lamely on three legs.

When other beasts are captured, they will just wail in place and eventually become the hunter's meal.

If it were you, would you be a wolf who has the courage to break a leg to save yourself? Or will he fall prey to panic?

We have to admit that we often make wrong choices.

But people who don’t know how to stop losses will often only lose more.

This is what is called "sunk cost" in economics, which refers to expenditures that have been paid and cannot be recovered, such as time, money, emotion, energy, etc.

In life, many people are often reluctant to give up sunk costs:

You buy a movie ticket, watch it for half an hour and find out that it is a bad movie, but you still watch it;

I have been in love with my boyfriend for 3 years, and even though we have no feelings for each other anymore, we still get along together;

When traveling to popular tourist attractions, when I see the crowds and the bad scenery, I still finish the trip. The whole process;

After working in an industry for many years, I have no development prospects and don’t want to give up the accumulated experience, so I continue to struggle and worry...

The astonishing sunk costs tell us that it is best to stop losses in time. High quality for adults.

There is a British proverb: Don't cry over spilled milk.

But why are there still many people in life who can’t help but be milk cryers?

This is because giving up sunk costs will trigger the "loss aversion effect."

Behavioral psychology research has found that people’s feelings of loss are about four times stronger than their feelings of gain. This is the “loss aversion effect.”

The same is true in real life. When you watch money leave you, the pain you feel is much greater than the joy you feel when you get something of equal value.

In other words, when sunk costs are incurred, people will instinctively "bite the bullet and carry on."

These concepts are so deeply embedded in our cognition.

Controls our thinking habits and makes us make irrational choices at critical moments.

We are always afraid of loss and forget that we can gain more.

If we have the courage to accept these losses, we will have the opportunity to invest our lives in a future of unlimited resources and find better ways to make up for these losses.

Japan’s Panasonic Communications once faced a major crisis.

Originally, Panasonic was Japan's number one and the world's leading electronic computer development company.

Unexpectedly, IBM from the United States suddenly emerged, and these dark horses quickly surpassed Panasonic in the ranking of electronic computers.

Panasonic’s top management was in danger, and they all came up with ideas to seize the opportunity.IBM's market share.

Unexpectedly, President Konosuke Matsushita made a surprising decision: to abandon the field of electronic computers directly, even though a lot of research expenses had been invested.

Since then, Panasonic has focused on developing traditional products and finally found its own path.

Fujitsu and Hitachi, which competed with IBM back then, ended in disastrous defeats.

You cannot admonish those who have gone by, but you can still pursue those who have come.

Smart people never sit around grieving their losses, they happily find ways to make up for their trauma.

As the famous writer Lin Yutang said: "Wise giving up is better than blind persistence."

Those who dare to stop losses in time will lose in the past, but they will win. future.

My friend has been in a relationship with her husband for 5 years and been married for 3 years. The husband has a bad habit of gambling and often plays cards online.

Everyone around me is urging my friends to get divorced before they have children.

However, my friend was very hesitant and said that she was reluctant to let go of the relationship she had had with her husband since college.

I would rather help him repay the loan and live in a mess than get divorced.

Finally, when loan shark collectors came to her door and even paid for the wedding house, she finally chose to divorce.

In a similar situation, He Yu in the hit drama "A Year Without a Job" is much more decisive.

Although He Yu has been in a relationship with her fiancé for 10 years, when she found out that her fiancé was having an affair with an intern in his company, she neither looked at her fiancé’s phone nor thought about it, and immediately took matters into her own hands. Make it clear and let your fiancé express his opinion.

Seeing that her fiancé was protecting the intern and ignoring her feelings, she poured a glass of water on the scumbag and ended the relationship on her own initiative.

After breaking up with the scumbag, she was in great pain and locked herself in her room without eating or drinking.

But after one night she regained her composure and got back to work.

Few people can be so decisive. Most people take it for granted when it comes to sunk costs.

"It's been here", "It's been so long", "All the money has been paid", "The children have been born"...

Just because you have paid, so I had to continue to hold on in pain until there was nothing left to lose.

Those who find it difficult to give up sunk costs will eventually sink.

As the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote in his poem:

"If you cry for the loss of the sun, you will also lose the stars."

The effective way is to actively embrace the stars when the sun is lost. This is true wisdom.

The most difficult self-discipline for adults is to stop losses in time.

Stop loss in time is not a sign of cowardice, but a act of self-rescue.

The smarter the person, the better he knows how to give up strategically and not get involved with bad people and bad things.

Those who break through sunk costs usuallycan create amazing value in the future.

Gandhi threw his shoe

Once, India's "Mahatma" Gandhi took a train for a long trip.

When he just stepped on the door, the train was about to start, and one of his shoes accidentally fell out of the door.

At this moment, Gandhi quickly took off his other shoe and threw it to where the shoe had fallen.

Everyone was puzzled, and Gandhi explained:

"If a poor man happens to pass by the railway, he can pick up a pair of shoes. This may be a gain for him. This pair of shoes The value of the shoe can also be reflected to the greatest extent.”

For Gandhi, it was impossible to recover the dropped shoes, so the shoes became his sunk cost.

In life, many people will be worried about sunk costs and be timid when making the next decision, thus missing the opportunity to stop losses in time.

But a true warrior must not only dare to face the bleak life, but also dare to give up the worthless past.

The following three thoughts can help you overcome the sunk cost effect and stop losses in time.

1. Thinking of breaking up the separation

Eiko Yamashita wrote in the book "The Breaking Up":

"No matter how expensive the thing is, how expensive it is, It’s rare that people who can judge based on their own needs are strong enough.”

Separation is not only a home organization and storage technique, but also a way of organizing life in the present.

Learning to let go can help us get rid of the impact of sunk costs.

The essence of the thinking of "breaking away" is "breaking away". Only when you first recognize the mistakes in reality and make the decision to "break away" can you then follow up with "giving up" and "leaving".

Many people dare not “break” because they dare not admit their failure.

The more self-esteem people have, the more serious their sunk cost model is.

Because they always want to prove that they are right and pretend that they have not taken any detours.

Everyone makes mistakes, and only by having the courage to face the mistakes you have made can you get out of the quagmire of sunk costs as soon as possible.

2. Subtractive thinking

A study published in the magazine "Nature" found that when people want to change the status quo, they are often more inclined to add rather than streamline the current things. .

Choose addition, perhaps because deleting something means admitting that what was added before is a sunk cost.

But it turns out that just adding up is not the best solution in life.

How to grasp the big and let go of the small, and refine thinking and action paradigms are the ways to improve work efficiency and happiness in life.

Teacher Fan Deng pointed out in his interpretation of the book "Subtraction":

"Loss aversion should not be an excuse for us to ignore subtraction. The subtraction we pursue is an improvement.

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This improvement, even if it is reduced in quantity, is an improvement rather than a loss."

ComparedSuch as staying away from people who constantly consume you, getting out of jobs that don't allow you to grow, decisively giving up on wrong decisions...

Growth is about addition, while maturity is about subtraction.

3. Roundabout thinking

The so-called roundabout thinking means that when thinking about a problem, you should avoid direct confrontation, temporarily leave the straight track, take a detour, and strive to find the solution in the twists and turns. shortcut.

"There is no way out despite the mountains and rivers, but there is another village with dark flowers and bright flowers." This is the charm of this way of thinking.

When everyone around you encourages perseverance to the end, giving up in time becomes a kind of "deviant".

There is more than one path to success. If one path doesn’t work, then find another one.

Adjusting the direction and solving the problem in a roundabout way is far greater than the rewards that blind persistence will bring you.

There is a sentence in "The Little Prince" that touches the world: "You spent time on the rose to make it so precious."

There are many roses, this one and There is no essential difference in that one.

What you are not willing to give up is the time you have devoted to it.

But if the rose has deviated from your original intention and even hurt you, then decisively giving up the rose is the great wisdom in life.

Life is so long. If you buy the wrong thing, take the wrong road, or fall in love with the wrong person, just stop the loss in time, and you can encounter good scenery again if you start again.

Life is so short, don’t get caught up in the internal friction of sunk costs. Cut off when you need to, and leave when you need to. There are endless possibilities for your future.

May you be good at seizing every opportunity and dare to give up every sunk cost.