When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment. Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies when they should pivot, NBA general managers and coaches keep investing in new contracts and more playing time for draft busts, and politicians continue sending soldiers to wars that didn’t need to be fought in the first place. Sunk costs are a factor, but the most important causes appear to be psychological rather than economic. Escalation of commitment happens because we’re rationalizing creatures, constantly searching for self-justifications for our prior beliefs as a way to soothe our egos, shield our images, and validate our past decisions.

Escalation of commitment is a major factor in preventable failures. Ironically, it can be fueled by one of the most celebrated engines of success: grit. Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance, and research shows that it can play an important role in motivating us to accomplish long-term goals. When it comes to rethinking, though, grit may have a dark side. Experiments show that gritty people are more likely to overplay their hands in roulette and more willing to stay the course in tasks at which they’re failing and success is impossible. Researchers have even suggested that gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions, because they’re determined to do whatever it takes to reach the summit. There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.

Ryan escalated his commitment to medical training for sixteen years. If he had been less tenacious, he might have changed tracks sooner. Early on, he had fallen victim to what psychologists call identity foreclosure—when we settle prematurely on a sense of self without enough due diligence, and close our minds to alternative selves.

In career choices, identity foreclosure often begins when adults ask kids: what do you want to be when you grow up? Pondering that question can foster a fixed mindset about work and self. “I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child,” Michelle Obama writes. “What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”*

Some kids dream too small. They foreclose on following in family footsteps and never really consider alternatives. You probably know some people who faced the opposite problem. They dreamed too big, becoming attached to a lofty vision that wasn’t realistic. Sometimes we lack the talent to pursue our callings professionally, leaving them unanswered; other times there’s little hope that our passions can pay the bills. “You can be anything you wanna be?!” the comedian Chris Rock quipped. “Tell the kids the truth. . . . You can be anything you’re good at . . . as long as they’re hiring.”

Even if kids get excited about a career path that does prove realistic, what they thought was their dream job can turn out to be a nightmare. Kids might be better off learning about careers as actions to take rather than as identities to claim. When they see work as what they do rather than who they are, they become more open to exploring different possibilities.

Although children are often fascinated by science from a young age, over the course of elementary school, they tend to lose interest and confidence in their potential to be scientists. Recent studies show that it’s possible to maintain their enthusiasm by introducing them to science differently. When second and third graders learned about “doing science” rather than “being scientists,” they were more excited about pursuing science. Becoming a scientist might seem out of reach, but the act of experimenting is something we can all try out. Even prekindergarten students express more interest in science when it’s presented as something we do rather than someone we are.

Recently at dinner, our kids decided to go around the table to ask what everyone wanted to be when they grew up. I told them they didn’t need to choose one career; the average person ends up holding a dozen different jobs. They didn’t have to be one thing; they could do many things. They started brainstorming about all the things they love to do. Their lists ended up including designing Lego sets, studying space, creative writing, architecture, interior design, teaching gymnastics, photography, coaching soccer, and being a fitness YouTuber.

Choosing a career isn’t like finding a soul mate. It’s possible that your ideal job hasn’t even been invented yet. Old industries are changing, and new industries are emerging faster than ever before: it wasn’t that long ago that Google, Uber, and Instagram didn’t exist. Your future self doesn’t exist right now, either, and your interests might change over time.

TIME FOR A CHECKUP

We foreclose on all kinds of life plans. Once you’ve committed to one, it becomes part of your identity, making it difficult to de-escalate. Declaring an English major because you love to read, only to discover that you don’t enjoy the process of writing. Deciding to start college during a pandemic, only to conclude later that you should have considered a gap year. Gotta stay on track. Ending a romantic relationship because you don’t want kids, only to realize years down the road that you might after all.

Identity foreclosure can stop us from evolving. In a study of amateur musicians, those who had settled on music as a professional calling were more likely to ignore career advice from a trusted adviser over the course of the following seven years. They listened to their hearts and tuned out their mentors. In some ways, identity foreclosure is the opposite of an identity crisis: instead of accepting uncertainty about who we want to become, we develop compensatory conviction and plunge head over heels into a career path. I’ve noticed that the students who are the most certain about their career plans at twenty are often the ones with the deepest regrets by thirty. They haven’t done enough rethinking along the way.*

Sometimes it’s because they’re thinking too much like politicians, eager to earn the approval of parents and peers. They become seduced by status, failing to see that no matter how much an accomplishment or affiliation impresses someone else, it’s still a poor choice if it depresses them. In other cases it’s because they’re stuck in preacher mode, and they’ve come to see a job as a sacred cause. And occasionally they pick careers in prosecutor mode, where they charge classmates with selling their souls to capitalism and hurl themselves into nonprofits in the hopes of saving the world.

Sadly, they often know too little about the job—and too little about their evolving selves—to make a lifelong commitment. They get trapped in an overconfidence cycle, taking pride in pursuing a career identity and surrounding themselves with people who validate their conviction. By the time they discover it was the wrong fit, they feel it’s too late to think again. The stakes seem too high to walk away; the sacrifices of salary, status, skill, and time seem too great. For the record, I think it’s better to lose the past two years of progress than to waste the next twenty. In hindsight, identity foreclosure is a Band-Aid: it covers up an identity crisis, but fails to cure it.

My advice to students is to take a cue from health-care professions. Just as they make appointments with the doctor and the dentist even when nothing is wrong, they should schedule checkups on their careers. I encourage them to put a reminder in their calendars to ask some key questions twice a year. When did you form the aspirations you’re currently pursuing, and how have you changed since then? Have you reached a learning plateau in your role or your workplace, and is it time to consider a pivot? Answering these career checkup questions is a way to periodically activate rethinking cycles. It helps students maintain humility about their ability to predict the future, contemplate doubts about their plans, and stay curious enough to discover new possibilities or reconsider previously discarded ones.

I had one student, Marissa Shandell, who scored a coveted job at a prestigious consulting firm and planned on climbing up the ladder. She kept getting promoted early but found herself working around the clock. Instead of continuing to just grit and bear it, she and her husband had a career checkup conversation every six months, talking not just about the growth trajectory of their companies but also about the growth trajectory of their jobs. After being promoted to associate partner well ahead of schedule, Marissa realized she had reached a learning plateau (and a lifestyle plateau) and decided to pursue a doctorate in management.*