Be Prepared to Take Risks to Avoid the “hit Trap”
The longer you do something, the easier it is to get on track and be afraid to take risks. However, a mid-race lane change may be necessary to have more impact.
As Facebook VP of Advertising Andrew Bosworth explains, the sunk cost error leads us to believe that if we’ve been in a certain job for a long time or in a certain relationship, we can’t give it up. However, this assumes that we made the right choice in the first place. Which is very unlikely, since any long-term commitment begins when you have a minimum of knowledge about how it will work. Bose calls this the “hit trap” because we are afraid of losing the hit from our cumulative experience. To get the most out of life, you must be willing to take risks:
We have to look at our careers for a long time. Optimizing for immediate impact is a smart thing to do on a day-to-day basis, but to avoid the hit trap, we must consider impact over years or even decades. Thus, when we get to the top of another mountain, we have the courage to break into the valley again to pursue even higher peaks.
Of course, most of the best things in life take time. Skills, careers, and relationships all take many years to reach maturity. However, the more experience you gain, the more likely you are to discover new opportunities or goals that you can achieve. Unless you are willing to take new risks, you rely on the idea that your younger, less experienced version of you is smarter in the past than you are now.