Decide While Others Delay: 6 Tips to Keep Decision-Making Stress Down

Every day you make decisions, right? Whether they’re on what to have for breakfast or what you might do to accomplish your medical career goals, these decisions matter. Each one shapes your life. So, to stay ahead of the game and accomplish your goals as a med student, you need to decide while others delay.

When you put off decisions, they bring on the stress that leaves you distracted. This overwhelming feeling can lead any medical student to make the wrong decisions. And that leads to even more stress.

As a future doctor, you don’t have time to waste like many of your friends and family. You must decide while others delay. Getting distracted by the mundane won’t help this process at all. So, how can you de-clutter your mind to handle decision-making better and faster under pressure?

Learn to make better decisions when it seems like the world is resting on your shoulders. Don’t wait until you’re a busy physician. The time to start making these changes in your life is now, while you’re still in medical school.

1. Never Stray from Your Medical Career Goals

It’s very important that every big decision you make in your life is in line with your future career goals as a medical student. Always ask yourself if a decision you’re making will make or break your career as a future physician. If so, don’t do it.

Always keep your eye on the prize. Becoming an MD or someday getting your Ph.D. takes hard work and tough decisions. Never make a choice that could jeopardize your long-term goals in medicine.

2. Focus on the Big Picture

Making tons of monotonous daily decisions reduces your ability to focus. Create a routine for yourself. That will help limit some of the mundane decisions you have to make each day.

For example, create a weekly menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, at least the decision of ‘what will I eat today is out of the way. On Sundays, lay your clothes out for all of next week. That way, you no longer worry about what to wear to school every single day.

Creating plans creates normal routines. This leaves room for bigger choices that require more of your concentration and decision-making time. This makes it easier for you to decide while others delay.

3. Recognize the Trends of Your Decisions

Every day of our lives is different. Yet, certain things become similar after a while. Understanding this makes it easier to predict the outcome of decisions based on past experiences… including successes and failures.

The more you make decisions based on your failures and successes, the more efficiently you’ll make choices. They’ll be wiser and faster freeing your time up for bigger decisions.

These decision-making trends help you stay calm as your responsibilities start to grow… as your career grows.

4. Avoid Regrettable Decisions

Remember, keep potential outcomes in mind while making decisions. It’s not worth spending time and effort on a decision that you already know you’ll regret later. This is inefficient, careless, and lazy.

You’ll spend more time in the future making additional decisions, trying to fix the outcome of the regrettable ones. That’s not to say always play it safe. Just be sure each decision makes sense for both your personal and professional lives.

5. Create Your Own Stress Test Meter

The further you move toward your career in medicine, the more decisions you’ll have to make… from how to prepare for your residency to how to land the clinical placement you want. Soon, you won’t have time to stress about small things like what to wear to school today or which gas station should you frequent.

Create your own personal stress test meter. Grade decisions you must make on a scale of 1-10. Decide where to draw the line when it comes to decisions you allow to stress you out.

For example, what to eat for lunch maybe a 3. You can easily make plans, so this decision becomes routine. Simply plan out your lunch menu for the entire week or month. That leaves you more room to deal with those 8s, 9s, and 10s faster because you’re not already over-stressed over the lower-level decisions.

Online Stress Test Meters

Check out some of the online stress tests below to find out if you’re stressed out right now. Take action. Decide while others delay:

• Be Mindful – Test Your Stress
• Psychologist World – Online Stress Test
• Stress-O-Meter – Work, School, Home & Social Stress Tests

6. Control Only What’s in Your Control

As a busy medical student, you wear many hats… both professionally and personally. But you can’t possibly take on everything and still do well in class and on US medical exams and certifications. Controlling every aspect of everything around you may cause your clinical rotations and residencies to suffer.

Keep your focus on the things you have direct control over. If not, you’ll become overwhelmed because you’ll fail at tackling things out of your control. You become a burnout, which will lead to delaying your dreams of becoming a doctor.

Take Control of Your Medical Test Scores

You need to be able to put your all into medical school. This is impossible if you’re worrying about things you simply can’t do anything about in the end.

One thing you can control is your ability to pass your exams with good test scores. If you’re worried about upcoming BLS, ACLS, USMLEs, test prep will help you take control of the situation.

MedSmarter offers MCAT & USMLE Tutoring, as well as test prep courses. The Atlanta-based test prep company also provides ERMI Residency Prep & Clinical Placement Preparation courses to help you with your journey of becoming a doctor in the US.

Ready to make one of the best decisions of your life as a future physician? Decide while others delay. Click the link below to learn more about MedSmarter’s US medical exams test preparation services.