A driver rammed into my mom’s parked car, knocking it into a sign and totaling it.

Fortunately, my mom wasn’t there. Unfortunately, her car was.

While helping my mom decide which car to buy, I inadvertently put my own decision-making framework into words.

A seemingly big decision, like which car to buy, can take over a person’s life. Meanwhile, some people make much larger decisions with ease.

I don’t think the best decision-makers were born on Krypton. They just have better frameworks, ones that help them make quicker, better decisions when someone with the same information might struggle.

If you believe that too, this might be for you.

1. There is no perfect choice, or you would have made it already.

If you’re stuck between two good options, either one may get you where you want to go.

The problem starts when you try to optimize beyond what you can reasonably know. We search for the perfect choice because we hope it will give us more control over the outcome. Usually, it won’t.

Ask instead: What am I actually trying to get from this decision? What information would genuinely make one option better than the other? If that information isn’t available, stop waiting for certainty and make the best call you can.

Action produces information. Anxiety doesn’t.

2. Is this decision a one-way door or a two-way door?

If the decision turns out to be wrong, how expensive or difficult would it be to reverse course? Would reversing it even be possible?

Most decisions are more reversible than we think. Jobs change. People move on.

The price of inaction is frequently higher than the cost of wrong action.

3. How can your past experience and your best guess of the future inform your present judgment?

Cheat on your diet enough times, and you start to understand cause and effect. The point is to learn from it and change.

The smartest people learn from others’ mistakes. Smart people learn from their own the first time.

You don’t want to have to learn a costly lesson more than once. It stings enough the first time.

Look back at what happened last time. Think ahead to what might happen this time. Let both inform what you do now. Make the best worst decision.

4. Fear and uncertainty might mean you’re doing it right.

If you felt peachy at mile 25 of a marathon, you’re probably not doing it right.

Nervous about approaching that beautiful girl, starting a company, or posting on social media? That’s how you’re supposed to feel.

Instead of punishing yourself for those normal feelings, consider what they mean.

Maybe it would be irrational not to feel nervous. Maybe the choice is whether you act out of fear or in spite of it.

Sometimes, understanding why you feel a certain way can help you think more clearly.

Opportunity doesn’t always look like opportunity in the moment. It looks like risk.

Either the fear will go away or the opportunity will.

5. What am I having for lunch today?

Does this decision really move the needle? Or am I spending energy on it to avoid more important, scarier work?

Some decisions deserve careful thought. Others just need to be made.

We are imperfect beings. We don’t have all the information, and we never will. We must make the best worst decision we can and keep moving forward. Our ancestors did. That’s why we’re here.

Keep calm and carry on.

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  • Louis Shulman / Dan Martell