Knowing When To Let Go

Okay, have you ever invested so much time into something or someone, and because of how much time you invested, you still stay committed to the cause, even when it no longer served you or was no longer in your best interest? Maybe it's a job or a friendship or even a personal project you decided to take on that turned out to be way more work than you thought without a lot of payoff.

This, my friend, is called the sunken cost fallacy.

And usually we have a tough time moving away from these situations because we're looking back at what we've invested.

We get caught up in the past and we think about all the time that we've spent and the energy we've put into this thing.

And we aren't aware of the present moment.

Mindfulness can give us the tools to gain that present moment perspective and help us recognize what the current circumstances are showing us.

that it's time to move on and it's time to let up.

So what other factors trap us in the sunken cost fallacy? Research shows that when we make a decision, at times they can be from an emotional place.

And if you've been meditating for a while, you know that just like clouds in the sky, emotions are temporary and transient, which may not be the best foundation to decide upon.

Luckily, though, we can learn from our experience.

There's a Zen story about a student who saw his teacher who looked completely at peace.

So he asked, how are you so peaceful? And the teacher replied, from good judgment.

Curiously, the student asked, well, how did you learn good judgment? And the teacher said simply, from experience.

The student, a bit eager and annoyed, asked, well, how did you get the experience? From bad judgment, the teacher replied.

I share this story because even though we may feel that we've wasted time, there's a lot to learn from the time we've wasted.

So how can we do this? How can we compost our learnings and recycle them for a more sustainable and favorable outcome? It starts with our awareness.

Becoming aware of what we're focusing on and what we give our attention to.

We can be so caught up in negative feelings about wasted time or even just our overwhelming thoughts about leaving the situation that isn't serving us.

And this continues the cycle we're in.

And you guessed it, a way to break this cycle is by practicing mindfulness.

Becoming acquainted with the present moment instead of just the problem.

Maybe asking yourself, why am I so afraid to leave these circumstances? How is this relationship, project or job serving me at this moment? Why is it so hard to accept that I may have made a mistake by spending so much time on this? If we can zoom out and look at the big picture from a bird's eye view, we can get a better understanding of what is going on.

And that can even help us begin to be more solution focused.

Something else that can help you gain perspective is finding someone you can talk to who isn't invested in this issue.

Remember, the sunken cost effect can happen because we make decisions based on our own emotions.