How To Unlock the Power of Long-Term Thinking

One of the most important mental models to master is long-term thinking. It is the key to achieving anything worthwhile in life. Let's see how to make it work.

I.

You have two options. You can have fun now. Or you can be successful later.

You can go bar hopping. You can order that large Big Mac meal. You can watch some porn.

Or you can stay at home and study, eat healthy, and approach that attractive stranger.

Option 1 is about immediate gratification. You get a quick dopamine hit. It is the easy option. But the more you give into that, the more the trajectory of your life will take a downturn.

Option 2 is about delayed gratification. You exercise your willpower and do the hard thing. There is no quick reward. But the more you choose to do the hard thing, the more the trajectory of your life takes an upturn.

II.

If you choose to go with option 2 — long-term thinking — expect to see an exponential curve. For a while, you will put the work in and nothing much will happen. But then, typically around the 3–5 year mark, suddenly results go through the roof.

Success is not a linear progression, but a hockey stick graph.

If you choose to with option 1 — short-term thinking — there will be a similar dynamic. For a while, nothing much will change. You don't eat one Big Mac and then turn fat. You don't get drunk once and become an alcoholic.

But keep doing it, and at one point, you will start coming apart. And then the decline will be rapid.

III.

In reality, people rarely choose just one — short-term or long-term thinking. They oscillate back and forth.

The best way to visualize that is the survivor analogy (a concept I stole from Jeff Olson).

Let's say you are shipwrecked. To survive, you must tread water. But it's exhausting. So, at some point, you allow yourself to go under.

And at first, it feels nice. You are finally getting a break. But the further you go under, the more you realize that this is getting out of hand. If you want to survive, you must do something.

So, you start swimming and eventually resurface. Fresh air!

But guess what happens next — after a while, you grow tired again. And so you go under again.

Up and down, up and down — this is how most people's lives play out.

But this way, we accomplish nothing. We never make it to the shoreline of the island nearby. In other words, we never experience those exponential gains. We just survive.

IV.

Here are three strategies to stop being shipwrecked and make it to land.

The first strategy is to constantly ask yourself the extrapolation question — "If today was the blueprint for the rest of my life, what would my results be in 10, 20, or 30 years from now?"

This forces you to ignore all the urgent minutiae and think about what activities will make a difference in the long run.

It makes you realize that your habits are everything. You become what you constantly do.

Tip: Set yourself an alarm for three times a day. Every time the alarm goes off, you must take a 5-minute time-out and ask yourself the extrapolation question.

Implement this one behavior, and over time, it will change your life.

The second strategy is to eliminate things.

Sticking with long-term thinking is hard; it requires a lot of willpower to always make the smart choice. But the more projects you have on your plate, the faster your willpower will be used up. After that, naturally, you start making bad decisions.

So, do less. Focus on fewer projects (ideally just one), and give that your all. It will become much easier to do the smart thing.

The third strategy is to create accountability.

Get someone you must report to every day — an accountability partner or an accountability coach. It becomes near impossible to keep making excuses if you have an outsider look at your life. They will keep pointing out the smart choice to you — the long-term perspective — until you stop fighting it.

At the same time, they will offer encouragement when you are tempted to throw in the towel. It will become much easier to stay the course.

Time to wrap up this newsletter. I still have about 1000 words to edit for the blog, something I do every day. It's a tiresome task, but those tasks eventually win you the game. Long-term thinking, again.

Let me know what your long-term thinking strategies are! (and what you struggle with).

Until next week,

Niels