Once you decide your line in advance, half your tough choices become easy ones.

Most hard choices are hard because they get made under pressure, with an audience and a clock running. Deciding in advance moves the choosing into a calm moment and leaves only the following through. That removes the part where you negotiate with yourself in real time and lose. The decision is already made, and you are simply reporting it.

Pick one situation you know is coming and settle now what you will do. Put it in a single sentence you can remember. When it arrives, you will be carrying it out rather than deciding.