Cognitive biases
Sunk Cost Fallacy Decision-Making Worksheet
This tool forces a client to evaluate a decision based on future costs and benefits; ignoring past.
Your client is facing a major decision but feels paralyzed. They repeatedly justify staying in a detrimental situation, a career, a relationship, or a long-term project, by pointing to the years of effort or financial investment already committed. Their logic is stuck on the past, making it impossible to evaluate the future objectively.
This directive provides a concrete framework for detaching the decision from past expenditures. It shifts the client’s evaluation to what matters now: the future costs and benefits of their next step. The client walks away with a clear, forward-looking assessment, disentangled from the emotional weight of what’s already gone.
Sunk Cost Fallacy Decision-Making Worksheet
Consider a project, commitment, or relationship you are having difficulty leaving. Answer the following questions about it. For this exercise, you must completely ignore what you have already invested. Base all your answers only on the costs and benefits from this point forward.
What is the specific situation you are evaluating? _
If you continue, what are the specific, likely positive outcomes from today onward? _
What future costs in time, money, and emotional energy will be required to continue? _
What is the best possible outcome if you continue, and what is the realistic chance of it happening? _
What is the worst possible outcome if you continue? _
If you stop today, what will you immediately gain? Consider your time, finances, and attention. _
What negative consequences will occur if you stop now? Do not include past investments. _
What new opportunities or projects could you pursue with the resources you would get back? _
Imagine you were offered this exact opportunity for the first time today. It requires the future costs you listed above and offers the future benefits you listed above. Knowing only this, would you accept the offer? _
Explain your reasoning for this final decision. _
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