Thinking Long-term & Seeing the BIG Picture

We have all been there. We have all experienced moments, days, or even weeks when the obstacles of the present raise our frustrations which blur our vision of our individual big goals in life. However, continuously thinking long-term allows you to see past the short-term issues you are facing.

For one, thinking long-term allows you to see things strategically.  Everyone deals with issues. It is foolish to think that successful people have gotten to where they are without any bumps in the road. The difference between them and those who were not successful in reaching their goals is that highly motivated people effectively navigate short-term issues while remaining diligently focused on long-term goals and opportunities.  It takes discipline, but if you want to find motivation that is not easily sent off track you must think long term.

 

Ask yourself...Are you short or long?

Nothing can destroy the mind faster than failing to see things in a long-term perspective.   When we become too consumed on the short-term obstacles and difficulties, we lose sight of the overall objective we were setting out to accomplish in the first place. For example, salespeople struggle with this all the time. It’s very easy to have a day that does not go well.  All it takes is for a few sales to not come off as planned, and without any additional prompting, the salesperson can quickly descend into a deep funk. In fact, ask any person in any job/career if they have had something in their job not go as planned which made them fall into a funk. They will say "yes." 

 

What to do? STAY FOCUSED! If you don’t stay focused on the long-term goal, you can very easily allow the results of a single day to shape your mind for an entire week, month, or even quarter. 

 

Students of history are the best at understanding the impact of long-term thinking.  History is full of lessons where the long-term actions of an individual or group led to far better results than the short-term actions by others. Apple would never be the company it is today if they had allowed the defeats they had at the hands of Microsoft in the early days of personal computing to shut them down. Oprah was once told she was "unfit for TV." Steven Spielberg go rejected from film school three times. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Do you see a pattern? In each of these situations it was long-term thinking and seeing the big picture that drove them to push and push even harder. The lesson: the most successful things do not come through luck or quick ideas.

 

Therefore, ask yourself...  

What is your long-term goal?

What are you doing to achieve it?

What are you learning from the short-term issues or obstacles you face to help you stay on track long-term?

 

Great goals are not quick goals!! By keeping your thinking on the long-term, you’ll be in a much better position to create results that last and less likely to allow yourself to be derailed from short-term obstacles.  The pay off is tremendous and will be reflected in your motivation during whatever you are doing now and what you do in the future. Think long-term and think BIG!