Ask yourself what story you’ll tell about this later. Then act like the person you’d want in the story.

Hindsight is available in advance if you borrow it. In the moment, the pull is toward whatever ends the discomfort fastest, and that pull is strong because the future version of you is not in the room. Imagining the telling puts them there. You usually know immediately which option you would be embarrassed to narrate.

Before the next difficult thing this week, spend ten seconds on how you will describe it in a year. Then take the option the better narrator would get to report. It works best on small decisions, which is most of them.