While this sounds simple, I will expand on the axiom in order to unpack it and demonstrate how it can have an interesting psychological effect.
First, many may be familiar with choosing what to do with their time; be it donating to a cause, pursuing a career, or visiting friends and family, our choices reflect priorities. Currently, I am doing what I value by writing here-I am choosing to reflect my values in my actions. What about the inverse, or second part of this axiom? Does it just mean that we value completing a task? It's actually less clear, and potentially insidious. What this points out is that once we make a choice (or pay a cost), we unconsciously seek to validate it. In part, this effect seeks to resolve cognitive dissonance by reaffirming that a previous loss was the correct choice. If we apply this to my writing, it could be that once I started this post (or the blog itself) I was invested and therefore would have trouble stopping; by taking time away from other areas of my life or 'paying the cost' I would need to defend that choice. This defence comes at a lower or higher intensity depending on the cost. If I were to give 90% of my money to a cause, I am likely to vigorously defend that choice-even or especially after it turned out to be a fraud! This is because the news that I was taken advantage of clashes with my self-image as an intelligent and cautious individual; the news that I was defrauded threatens my very belief in myself, and therefore must be combated.
This is referred to sunk-cost fallacy, and has been widely studied. Because it is already well-known, it can be found in many areas of life outside business and behavioural psychology. I have encountered it reading about self-help/self-improvement topics. Often, the advice is to spend money on a gym membership or exercise equipment in order to jump-start the process; "I've already spent the money, I might as well use it!". However, it also pops up for individuals looking to 'win friends and influence people'. You may even have encountered it a few years ago in popular articles describing how to get people to help you. It basically amounted to using this effect to manipulate others into giving more than they get; "have them give you something small, then when you make the big ask they are primed to agree."
My goal with this post is simply to acknowledge that this bias/cognitive error exists, hence the pithy title which I often recite as a reminder. As with most things, this is a tool that can be used for good or ill; it depends on the user more than the tool.
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