You can't build a long term future on short term thinking. Billy Cox

Are you playing a long or short game?

What’s the difference?

Immediate, quick short-term gains and results versus results over time.

Which one is better, or more useful?

It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

You might enjoy the quick wins or instant gratification that you receive from short-term actions, but do they fit into the long-term vision of your life?

The problem with only playing the short game is that it’s easy to get addicted to doing so. You neglect the future and only seek to do what makes you happy right now. And soon enough, the future is upon you, and you begin to realize that you haven’t prepared adequately because you squandered so much time on the short game.

The long game requires tradeoffs and sacrifices. It involves making decisions that delay gratification and your willingness to work towards an intangible future that exists only in your mind.

I’ll be the first to agree that you can’t and shouldn’t always play the long game. There is absolutely a time and place for you to participate in and even enjoy short-term thinking and results, but you must learn to balance between and long and short games.

Time has the incredible ability to compound your actions, so what might seem to you as ‘one-off’ short-term choices soon begin to increase in frequency, and if the choices are detrimental to you, it might take you twice as long to course correct.

So, the next time you’re thinking about short-term results, consider how they might affect you in the long-term. And yes, I know that the younger you are, the more difficult it is to do so because you feel invincible and the future is so far away.  But try to get in the habit of viewing life through the lens of the long game as soon as you can. One day in the future, you’ll look back and will be grateful to the person you are today for doing so.

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