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Long-term thinking, and the actions that enable your eventual success, requires sacrifice—including, at times, the sacrifice of our dignity and pride. If you’re willing to endure the discomfort and humiliation, the rewards can be powerful.
When it comes to resisting short-term temptations (I’m going to eat that piece of cake or have a second drink), the trick is to “cool” the impulse by, as Konnikova recounts, “putting the object at an imaginary distance (a photograph isn’t a treat) or by reframing it (picturing marshmallows as clouds, not candy). Focusing on a completely unrelated experience can also work, as can any technique that successfully switches your attention.”
The secret may simply be to get started—in a very small way.
Because getting started is often the hard part, once you’re flossing that one tooth, it becomes far easier to keep going and floss them all.
For any activity where you feel nervous or averse, find one small way to begin.
The key is getting started.
“Most people think that if they work hard, they should be able to master a handstand in about two weeks. The reality is that it takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting.”
We can make ourselves smarter and more resilient if, from the outset, we truly make the effort to understand what success looks like.
“How many days can you step away from what you’re doing and it still operates?” Dave says. Have you put in place the systems you need so that the business doesn’t collapse if you’re not working 24/7?
Once you’ve honed your ability to stop work at a certain time every day, you can start to create what Dave calls an “oasis” in your week, which gives you a small break and ability to reset.
“You commit to it, and you ask yourself strategic questions. ‘What must I do to make this happen?’ When you start asking questions like that, it improves your manner of thinking and you start to become more effective in your career. You have to look for systemic improvements.”
But taking that break forces process improvements that make you, and your business, better. Someone thinking entrepreneurially, Dave says, will realize that “if I do this, I will make more money. I will increase the value of my time.”
If we blame our full calendars and say we can’t possibly write that screenplay or launch that podcast or attend that conference, we may technically be right. But we’re also being shortsighted. Because we can always make room for what’s important if we plan far enough out.
Playing the long game means being willing to think ahead, and even make short-term sacrifices, to accomplish what matters.
But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue.”5
When you plan for the long term, and are willing to adjust and adapt, you can create extraordinary experiences.
Success—always—takes longer than we want. If we wait until we’ve finally “made it” to celebrate, we’ll likely be waiting forever.
But we can’t just optimize for the short term and assume that will translate into long-term success. We have to be willing to do hard, laborious, ungratifying things today—the kinds of things that make little sense in the short term—so we can enjoy exponential results in the future.
Independence. At its heart, long-term thinking is about staying true to yourself and your vision.
Curiosity. Some people are content to live their lives according to the road map that others have laid out for them, never questioning or pondering alternatives.
Resilience. Doing something new, something unique, is by definition experimental. You have no idea if it’ll work or not—and oftentimes, it won’t.
