Are you thinking long-term?
What was your life like 10 years ago?Let me give you so context. Today marks my 10-year anniversary of being on Facebook. The iPhone is 10 years old this year. Oh, and 10 years ago, two of the members of my team were 10 years-old.
The world can change a lot in a decade.
Will this Facebook thing ever catch on?
I remember when I was first invited to join Facebook. An old school friend of mine sent me an invite and initially I didn’t really see the point in joining. Maybe it was only knowing one person who was using it (the person who sent me the invite). At the time it felt like it was a copy of friends reunited, remember that?
Friends Reunited was a big thing here in the UK. It was a way to reconnect with old friends and get a glimpse into how their lives had turned out. The downside with Friends Reunited was that you had to pay to message people. By comparison, Facebook was free and so I figured I give it a go.
There is no way I could’ve predicted who prevalent Facebook would become in all of our lives, or how it would become a key tool in helping we share my experience with others.
Thinking Long-term
So many people think long-term planning is about weeks, months or maybe a year. It is not.
If you want to think about the long-term is a decade, then think about a decade from now (or even longer), but how can you predict what’s gonna happen in 10 years time?
If you look back 10 years and compare your life with today, how different is it?
If you think back to your life in 2007, are you still in the same career? Are you in the same relationship? Do you live in the same place? Are there key people in your life you didn’t know (or who were yet to be born)?
Long-term commitment isn’t doing something for a month.
If you are thinking “I’m gonna do something for a week” or “I’m gonna do something for six weeks” or “I’m gonna do something for six months”, that is still short term.
If you think of it in the context of the average life, even six month is short term.
You can achieve so much if you are prepared to give something time. If you give it your perseverance. If you are persistent. If you are patient.
That’s how you win the game. You have to play the long game in life. That’s how you can achieve anything just about anything.
There is no right or wrong in what you should be trying to achieve. It’s about doing what’s right for you. It’s not about what’s right for me, or what’s right for anybody else.
If you are truly commit to something, give it time.
Most people focus on where can I get to in a year? But most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade.
Now you’ve got some context of how long a decade is, what could you achieve in the next 10 years?
