The pull of the current plan

Status-quo bias is the pull of the arrangement you already have. The current plan feels safer because it is familiar, not because it beat the alternative. A plan that has failed twice in the same way is evidence. Staying is a new decision, and it needs a new reason, not the mere fact that the plan is already the plan. You can keep it. You should be able to say what is different this time, or what the failure has not yet told you. Familiarity is not that reason.

Cognitive bias

Status-quo bias

Status-quo bias prefers the current arrangement because it is current, and treats a change as a loss even when the change is the better expected option. There can be real costs to changing. The bias is counting “it is already so” as a reason beyond those costs.

Open the full card

Mini check

A plan has failed twice in the same way. Which response best applies "proportion belief to the evidence"?

Trust the plan less unless a new fact explains both failures.Raise your confidence, because a third attempt is now due.Stop at a definition of insanity that gets pinned on Einstein.Set both failures aside, because the plan is who you are.

Try it today

For one plan you are keeping, write the reason that is not 'we already started'.

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