The cost of a mistake is rarely as high as the cost of trying to hide it.
I recently read a story about a master watchmaker who, after forty hours of intricate work on a single movement, noticed a microscopic flaw in a bridge he had just polished.
It wasn’t visible to the naked eye. The watch would have functioned perfectly. But he knew it was there, and he knew it compromised the integrity of the piece. He didn’t try to buff it out; he picked up a hammer, crushed the component, and started again.
In my world of financial planning, I see a similar psychological battle play out, though usually with spreadsheets rather than watch gears. It’s the battle against ‘sunk cost’—that nagging internal voice that tells you to keep going down a path simply because you’ve already spent so much time or money on it.
The trap of ‘making it work’
Most of us are wired to avoid loss. When I speak with people about their long-term strategies, the hardest things to walk away from aren’t the failures—they are the things that are “fine” but fundamentally flawed.
Maybe it’s a legacy investment property in a regional town with no growth, a complex trust structure that costs more to maintain than it saves in tax, or a superannuation fund you’ve been with for twenty years because changing it feels like admitting the last two decades were a mistake.
I believe the difference between a master of their finances and someone who just “gets by” is the courage to look at a flawed plan and say: “This isn’t right. Let’s bin it and start over.”
Why discarding work is an investment
When you scrap a plan that no longer serves you, you aren’t losing the time you spent on it. You are buying back your future. The amateur holds onto a bad investment because they can’t stand the thought of the ‘lost’ capital. The master understands that the capital is already gone—what matters is where the next dollar goes.
In craftsmanship, the contents of the bin are just as important as the piece on the pedestal. The bin represents the lessons learned, the standards upheld, and the refusal to settle for “good enough.”
How to audit your own ‘sunk costs’
If you feel like you’re working hard but not actually getting closer to the life you want, it might be time to check your own master’s bin. I suggest asking yourself these questions:
- The Clean Slate Test: If I didn’t already own this asset or have this strategy in place, would I choose to start it today?
- The Maintenance Check: Am I keeping this because it’s profitable, or because I’m afraid to admit I was wrong when I set it up?
- The Opportunity Cost: What could I achieve if the energy and capital tied up in this ‘flawed bridge’ were redirected toward my actual goals?
- The Expert View: When I look at my finances, do I see a coherent strategy, or a collection of historical decisions I’m too tired to untangle?
Starting over isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a sign that your standards have finally caught up with your ambitions. It’s the moment you stop being a passenger to your past decisions and start being the architect of your future.
If you suspect your current strategy is a watch movement with a hidden flaw, it’s worth a conversation. Not to judge what happened yesterday, but to ensure tomorrow is built properly.