You know you’re on the wrong career path, but can’t pull yourself away. To do so would be to give up all you’ve invested and admit failure (to everyone). So, you stick it out—despite desperately wanting to change course.
Sound familiar?
It turns out, there’s actually a name for this kind of behavior: the escalation of commitment.
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Escalation of commitment (often just called “irrational escalation,” which should tell you something) is the behavior that leads us to continue to invest time, money, or effort into a bad decision or unproductive course of action even when, deep down, we know it’s all wrong. Read more…