84. Everything we hold onto also has power over us!

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset, the channel for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible. In business administration, there’s an interesting concept called the sunk cost fallacy. It can be described with the saying, “it’s like throwing good money after bad.” I have a good example: an acquaintance of mine recently bought a used car and had to spend a lot of money on repairs and such.

No sooner had one repair been completed than something else broke down, and he’d probably had to sink 50, 60, 70 percent of the purchase price back into repairs, into various repairs. And I thought to myself, hey, maybe you should consider just selling the car. Maybe it was just a lemon, so to speak, and things will keep breaking down in the future, and it’s probably not worth throwing good money after bad, like in the sunk cost fallacy.

My acquaintance said, “Hey, I’ve already put so much money into this, it would feel kind of stupid of him to give it all up now, because he’s invested so much.” Well, everyone has their own opinion, of course, but I suspect it makes more sense to eventually let go of things you’ve invested a lot in and stop clinging to them. What does all this have to do with mindset? I have another example that led me to today’s podcast.

When a friendship takes a lot of energy

My wife had a very good female friend for many years, and they’re still friends. The problem with the friendship, especially during peak periods, was that this friend would always have personal or professional stress, making her very unreliable. She wouldn’t keep appointments, plans would be made, and then she’d cancel at the last minute, or she might not even contact her for a few weeks. That’s obviously not good in any friendship.

And especially with my wife, she’s very, like, “Hey, yeah, we had plans, so why are you canceling on me, or why aren’t you contacting me at all now, even though we already made plans?” It was particularly difficult for my wife to deal with the situation. I’ve talked to her about it several times in recent months, and at some point I said, “Hey, maybe you’re clinging to a friendship that’s actually preventing you from experiencing other wonderful things in life.”

Maybe you should just take a break from this friendship for a while, because you obviously value it more than the other person does, meaning you consider it a friend. Perhaps it makes sense to just let things rest for a bit. If your friend gets in touch, then by all means, make plans. If she doesn’t, then at least you won’t be stressed, and that stress won’t affect our family. It got to the point where she was so stressed that you could really tell it was impacting our family life.

Creating space for new encounters

She thought about it and said, “Hey, you’re right. I’ll try something different. I’ll let it all rest for a while and focus on other friends and make new plans.” The interesting thing is that shortly afterward, she actually made some great new friends, specifically with the other mothers from our kindergarten group. That was really interesting. They’ve now started a WhatsApp group and they meet up regularly.

And you could really tell she’d let go of that one friendship, or rather, wasn’t holding onto it as tightly anymore. Suddenly, new opportunities arose with other people, other friendships, other relationships. And that’s what I find so incredibly interesting—to come back to Stankovsferlessy’s example—she had consistently invested a lot in that one friendship, constantly throwing energy, time, activities, and so on at it. Partly because it had been such a long friendship, and while it used to be very stable and very good, over time it had become less so, she hadn’t invested nearly as much.

Every decision has a second side.

She was completely closed off to new things in life. And for me, that’s the perfect example of how you sometimes have to let go of certain things to make room for new ones. Whenever you decide on something, you also have to keep in mind that you might be deciding against something else. So, if I decide, for example, to spend a lot of time with a friend, a friendship, it might also mean that I then have little or no time left to make new friends who might also be good for me in some way.

Continued

That’s why it’s so important for me to regularly take stock, to see what’s truly important to me in life, what I’m holding onto, and what perhaps shouldn’t be so important anymore. Warren Buffett has a very interesting concept for this. He once said to write down the 25 most important things in your life. These could be activities, friendships, rituals, or whatever. Write them down, and then, once you’ve listed the 25, sort them into the top five, make that list, and then cross out the bottom 20.

Then focus solely on the top five, and remember that every time you do something for or with the other 20 points, you’re working against these five most important ones. I find it interesting to say, “Okay, whenever I do something else, I’m actually choosing against the most important points in my life—or at least the most important ones from my perspective today.” And that’s a regular practice. Of course, I’m not stopping at just those five.

Take a personal life inventory

I have a kind of list for all areas of my life that I look at regularly, especially at the end of the year. I’m a big fan of taking a kind of radical review at the end of the year. What was important? Did I stick to the things I previously considered important? Have any new priorities emerged? Did anything fall away? The end of the year is a great time for this kind of radical review, and of course, I also think about what I want to do differently next year.

An interesting thing is that we define ourselves by our habits and character traits. And I’ve always known that I’m a relatively resentful person, unfortunately. One thing that’s always bothered me is that I often couldn’t just let go of things that happened in friendships, relationships, and so on, and then move on.

No, they were always kind of lurking in the back of my mind, and they actually influenced how I behaved. And often I didn’t even want to feel like, hey, I don’t actually want to hold a grudge. I want to be able to put things behind me and move on. But I’ve become so entangled with this identity, and yes, I am simply a resentful person, that I haven’t even given myself the chance to say, yes, I’m simply not a resentful person anymore.

Forgiveness for your own inner peace

And at some point, I came across an interesting quote that I still really, really, really like. It goes something like this: you should forgive other people not to excuse them, but simply so that you yourself can live in peace. I think that’s incredibly powerful. And that also led me to say, OK, I no longer identify as a resentful person, but I simply try to be a non-resentful person. That works pretty well in 95 percent of cases.

There are still things I hold a grudge about. I’m trying to work on that. But since then, I have to admit, life has become much more relaxed. One thing I’m thinking about a lot right now, for example, is what I’m clinging to intensely and what’s taking up a lot of space. And what could I change? Not so that I automatically do new things in life or create new space at regular intervals, but I think that every now and then you simply have to make room for new impressions, new senses, or new experiences.

Rethinking basketball after 25 years

I recently realized that I’ve been playing basketball for almost 25 years now, maybe even 30 – I need to calculate exactly when I started, but definitely for over 25 years – and very regularly. And I actually had these thoughts for the first time recently. Should I stop now, to make room for new sports, for example? I’ve become so focused on playing basketball and being a basketball player that I haven’t left any room to start new hobbies of any kind.

So, it’s not about me saying I’m quitting basketball and never playing any sport or team sport again, but simply that I’ve been playing for 25 years and, well, I’m not going to get much better. I actually have to make sure I don’t get much worse. But maybe I need to make room for new things. It’s kind of a double-edged sword, but I’m also thinking that I probably won’t be able to play any other sport at the same level as I play basketball, because I simply can’t train three, four, five times a week like I used to.

Continued

In my youth, I trained an incredible amount. I had access to a court, a club, and everything. And now, at my age with family and everything else, I simply can’t invest that much time anymore. That means I probably wouldn’t be able to play any sport at the same level as basketball. There’s always a regression. And yet, after 25 years, I’m considering retiring. So I can make room for new things. Perhaps there are other sports I’d enjoy even more, maybe ones that are a bit easier on my joints, where I’ll make new friends, or perhaps even change clubs in some way.

So, I don’t want to cling to something just because I’ve been doing it for the last 25 years. I really want to be able to decide, to decide freely. I don’t want to let it have power over me, so to speak, that I’m consumed by it. Yes, I have to go to practice once a week now. I have to pursue my hobby once a week, for example. And I have to do that for the rest of my life, so that I can truly say, yes, I was a basketball player and it was incredibly fun.

Stay flexible and consciously let go

I simply want to have that flexibility. So, guys, regarding basketball, I don’t yet know how I’ll decide. Once I’ve made my decision, I’ll definitely let you know in a podcast. But perhaps my aim in today’s podcast was to offer some food for thought: that you shouldn’t always cling to certain things just because that’s how it’s been done for the past few years or because that’s how you’ve always done it. You also shouldn’t forget that when you cling to something, you usually give that thing power over you.

That’s something we shouldn’t forget. And when we decide on something, it often means deciding against other things. That doesn’t have to be good or bad. Everyone has to decide that for themselves. But in today’s podcast, it was simply important for me to convey whether we want to create space for something new or cling to something old, and we always need to be aware of the price, the costs involved. Great, everyone, that’s all for today’s podcast. I hope to hear from you again next week.

And if you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to chat, feel free to email me at hello@projectmindset.de. I always appreciate all the feedback I receive through any channel. People occasionally message me on LinkedIn, and I also get in touch via email. So I’m really happy when you reach out so we can have a little exchange. Great, I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. I’ll talk again next week. And don’t forget, see you then!

Mindset is everything.