Photo by Silas Köhler on Unsplash
Before going to university I had no patience. Everything I wanted, I wanted with minimal effort and in the least amount of time. I struggled to commit to anything other than exercise - but then I realised something…
Long-term thinking is the key to happiness.
The Arrival Fallacy ✈️
How often do we wait to reach the goal, assuming that once we get there we will be happy? We assume that achieving the goal will make us happy, and discard the notion that we can be happy in the meantime.
This is known as the arrival fallacy.
But the goal is a temporary, fleeting event, and we spend more time doing the thing that takes us towards the goal.
We want to achieve the goal today because the thought of long-term commitment makes us uncomfortable.
Perhaps this inability to commit stems from the knowledge that our lives are finite, and tomorrow is never guaranteed. Perhaps it comes from the wealth of content available to us at the touch of a button, negating the need to wait.
One thing is for certain - the inability to think long-term holds us back.
The Solution 🙋
The solution? Embracing true long-term thinking.
Long-term thinking can be defined as working towards the future, but I think it goes further than this. I believe true long-term thinking involves an element of faith. Faith that what you’re doing is worthwhile, regardless of whether you reach your goal. Faith that you will be happy to have done the work, whether you reach an endpoint. This is how you become sustainably happy.
True Long-Term Thinking 🧠
Not convinced yet? Here are four reasons why I believe embracing long-term thinking can help you live a happier life:
1. Longevity is all there is
Despite the inclination to completely focus on the goal, and do everything to achieve it quickly, this isn’t usually achievable. If it was we’d all be millionaires driving Ferrari’s by lunchtime tomorrow.
The process that moves us towards the goal is what occupies our time between now and achieving it. Thus it is very important that we understand this if the aim is to achieve happiness.
If you love the idea of the goal, but will hate every second of the process that gets you there - change the goal. No goal can be worth sacrificing happiness for weeks, months or years to achieve.
2. Decide now, be happy later.
Another benefit of long-term thinking is that it helps you decide whether the work is worth it.
While similar to the previous point, this focuses more on using long-term thinking as a tool. A tool to decide what to pursue and what to avoid.
If we can decide upfront whether we like the work, not the goal, we can spend our time doing activities that bring us genuine happiness and fulfilment.
Life isn’t made up of goals, so why do we focus so much on them? Perhaps we should invert the problem and ask a different question:
Regardless of the goal, would the activity bring me happiness in and of itself? And if so, does the goal even matter?
If our aim is to live a happy, fulfilled life, does it matter what the goal is - or even if we have one?
“How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?“ - Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks)
The long-term approach will help you decide where to focus, because it emphasises the parts between now and achieving the goal. The parts where you will spend most of your time.
3. Increasing your success rate.
Once we decide where to focus, based on the day-to-day work, we should find something we intrinsically enjoy doing. This can increase our chance of success.
While I’m no psychologist, I do understand that intrinsic motivation can be far superior to extrinsic motivation. Particularly if the goal is happiness. Yet, this goes beyond happiness.
If we enjoy the work that we do, we will ‘work’ every hour possible, because work is no longer work - it’s play, and when work is play you become unstoppable.
You cannot compete with the person who gets genuine, intrinsic fulfilment from an activity. They will outperform you at every turn because they will put in double or even triple the time you do - and enjoy doing it.
With this comes incremental improvement and opportunities to learn from mistakes - none of which will feel like failure because you understand that the goal isn’t the endpoint . You enjoy the activity in and of itself.
4. Holistic self-improvement.
Lastly, a long-term approach can improve your life holistically - from your relationships and hobbies to career and personal finance.
Take romantic relationships for example. If we approach dating from a short-term perspective, what we look for in a partner may differ compared to if we were looking for a life partner. What this allows us to do is save our (and the other persons) time if/when we realise that the relationship isn’t going anywhere.
The same can also apply to our careers. What we look for in a temporary job may be very different to a career, and the sooner we focus on the latter the sooner we can pivot and move towards it.
Long-term thinking can also improve your personal finances, because you accept that saving is a long-term process. You understand that saying no to Starbucks may not change your life today, but doing so over a longer period could make a measurable difference.
Long-term thinking may not upgrade your entire life, but the accumulation of small improvements can go a long way to upgrading your happiness.
Conclusion
Considering your options before starting can help you enjoy your daily life along with increasing your success rate.
While long-term thinking may not be the sole key to happiness, I do believe it is essential one of the key ingredients to live a fulfilled life, and putting time in early will pay dividends over the long run.
Thank You
If you made it this far thank you — I appreciate you taking the time to read my work and sincerely hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to continue reading, I’ve included a few of my most popular articles below.
Thanks again,
Rob