How to Make the Best Decision Under the Worst Circumstances

Making good decisions under stress is a super skill that can get your attention, make you stand out, and build credibility at work.

Credit: Author

When making decisions under suboptimal conditions — the situation is not in our favour, we have incomplete details, or there’s an issue that requires urgent attention — most of us tend to screw up.

We overreact, hurry, and let our biases prevent us from making good decisions. We assume that, given the conditions and constraints under which we operate, this is the best we can do.

However, most of the time, our best is not good enough because we blame it on our circumstances and fail to learn from our mistakes instead of taking responsibility for our actions.

This creates a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety every time we are faced with a difficult situation — negative emotions from past failures, fear of not meeting expectations again and not knowing how to make a better decision, this time leading to bad choices with terrible results.

The ability to make good decisions under stress is highly valued because seeing it in action is rare. It’s a super skill that gets your attention, makes you stand out and builds credibility at…