How to choose the right solution
Sometimes, life throws us a choice: stick to your values and face short-term pain or take the easy way out and hope the consequences won’t be as bad. The latter is tempting—it’s quick, convenient, and feels like a win in the moment. Compromising your values is never the right solution. But it’s hard to always live your values when you’re facing fear in the moment.
I live in Sydney, a beautiful city by the ocean. But there’s a downside to the sea breeze—salt. It corrodes everything metallic, especially cars. The solution? Regular car washes to rinse off the salt and keep rust at bay.
This weekend, I took my car to my usual car wash. It was business as usual—until it wasn’t. Mid-cycle, the automated wash stopped abruptly. Two employees ran over to untangle a hose caught in one of the spinning brushes.
As I sat in the drivers seat after the car had been washed, something nagged at me. I stepped out of the car and looked at the drivers side door to follow my gut feeling there was a problem. And there was. Two deep scratches along the side of the car. No one mentioned the damage when I hopped back into it.
I asked to speak with the owner of the car wash but was told he was overseas and wouldn’t be back for a month. The staff assured me he’d call when he returned. That wasn’t the solution I was looking for. I pressed further, asking one of the attendants to contact the owner to let him know what happened and to call me with a proposed solution after that. Meanwhile, my insurance company informed me that damage caused at a car wash wasn’t covered by them.
Then, the unexpected happened.
The next day, one of the staff called me. He said, “After you left, we got together as a team and decided to chip in and pay for your car to be fixed while we wait for our boss to contact us. We’ve arranged for a mobile repair service to come to your home this week. It was our fault, and we’re sorry we didn’t tell you about the scratches right away. We can’t reach the owner, but we knew the right thing to do was to make it right.”
Wow. I felt immediately relieved and impressed by the decision they had made.
The repair was going to cost $800. They chose to split it between the five of them—all teenage boys working part-time. They chose to take the short-term hit, knowing it was the right thing to do.
That decision wouldn’t have been easy to make. It cost them money, effort, and a bit of pride. But they understood something important: doing the right thing might hurt in the short term, but it builds trust and loyalty, and over the long-term that creates a lot more value. They chose the right solution, even though it caused short term pain.
As a result they didn’t just keep me as a customer; they turned me into a fan. I now tell everyone who wants their car washed, to pay them a visit. I checked a few weeks later and their boss had refunded them the $800.
If you find yourself is a situation where you need to make a decision to take short term pain or risk doing nothing and hope the problem will go away, take these steps to confirm if your choice is the right one:
Visualise the long-term consequences
Project yourself into the future: What are the outcomes if you take the easy path?
Imagine explaining your decision to someone you respect—this can keep your integrity in focus.
Break down the pain
Identify the short-term discomfort you’re avoiding. Often, fear is exaggerated when it’s vague.
Break it into manageable steps and address them one at a time.
Seek accountability
Share your situation and decision-making process with someone who knows your values and will encourage you to stick to them.
Accountability helps overcome the instinct to rationalise the easier path.
Reframe Short-Term Pain as Growth
View the discomfort as a necessary step toward becoming the person you want to be.
Growth often feels challenging in the moment but ultimately rewards over the long term.
Use the 10/10/10 rule
Ask yourself how will you feel about this decision in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years?
This method helps you move beyond short-term avoidance to consider long-term alignment with your values.
Here’s the takeaway: taking short-term pain for long-term gain isn’t just a cliché; it’s a strategy to win. Sometimes, the bumpy road leads to the best destination.
Nice work, boys. You nailed it.