My brain often defaults to thinking of these situations in terms of potential loss, and I find the CFAR technique of reframing it as potential gain helpful. For example, my initial state might be "If I go ahead at full speed and the hotel is behind me, I'll lose half an hour. But if I turn around and the hotel is ahead of me, I'll also lose time." The better state is "By default, driving at half speed might get me to the hotel in 15 minutes if I'm going in the right direction, and I'll save ~8 minutes by going faster. Even if the hotel is behind me, I'll save time by driving ahead faster."