The secret to getting over a sunk cost.

I recently coached a friend who was torn between accepting an offer that perfectly aligned with who he is and waiting out another offer that may not come for a few more months.

He chose the “now” option instead of the potential option a few months down the road. It was the right choice for him. But in hindsight he said that the thing that kept him hanging on so long was thesunk cost of the time he had invested in the other search process. He’d begun the application more than a year ago and the thought of pulling out when he was so close to the finish line combined with not knowing what the response might have been was almost more than he could bear. We call this “What if…?” syndrome.

• What if I accept this job and hate it?
• What if I accept this job and love it but the other offer manifests in a few months and seems better?
• What if I turn down this job and wait for that one and it never manifests?
• What if I turn down this job and get an offer from that one and then end up hating it?
• In other words, what if I miss out?

There’s a solution to getting over the “What if’s” if life: winning.

When you succeed and win you erase regret or wondering. Picking the job right in front of him and crushing it will do wonders to help him get over “what might have been?” The best thing you can do when making a decision about career is pick the option that most aligns with your authentic self and then WIN at it. Knock it out of the park. Dominate it.

Do you think JP Morgan ever regretted investing in electricity? Did Henry Ford ever regret shutting down the Detroit Automobile Company to start Ford Motor Company? Does any great entrepreneur or career-shifter ever regret the move they made? Yes. But only if they don’t find a way to make it work and win. You are never free from regret, but succeeding can cover a world of “what if’s.”
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Make the best decision you can with the information you have, then get after it and make it happen. Being paralyzed by “what if” completely disregards your human ingenuity and ability to take something average and make it awesome. Now trust yourself and get to work.