For humans, focusing on short-term goals or dangers are second nature, meaning we tend to focus on the immediate future, like getting through your work week in anticipation for the weekend, instead of focusing on years ahead. The act of focusing on the distant future is called long-term thinking and is an invaluable asset for succeeding in life.
When you begin thinking about the long-term, your life will have more purpose and you will find it easier to cope with sudden changes that plague your future. Unfortunately, building your long-term thinking can be difficult, but this article is here to help. Here are five tips that can help you shape and sharpen your long-term thinking.
1.Play mobile or other casino games
Surprisingly, playing betting games can help you sharpen your long-term thinking, amongst other benefits. Online betting games, like the website “sbobet88”, can build long term thinking through simple evaluation. When engaging in casino games, you have to be aware of both short- and long-term consequences simultaneously. To explain, you have to be constantly aware of how much money you are putting into the pot and how much money you can win or lose.
2.Write short stories
Like videogames, writing short stories can also provide practice for thinking about things in the long-term. When writing short stories, you have to think about situations that your character will encounter and how these encounters will impact their life later on in the story.
Short stories often mimic real-life situations, with each character’s action having an unforeseen consequence. Through writing these situations out in a short story, you are training your brain to think about long-term consequences or impacts of your own actions.
3.Know what you want to accomplish during a lifetime
Having goals in life is crucial to building both long and short-term thinking, however, you need to know what you want to accomplish in life before you can create goals. Think about what you are passionate about and what you truly want to get done in your life, such as providing an optimal life for your family, or being able to retire early, or even making a difference in your community.
Once you have decided what you want to accomplish in life, stick to that goal and plan out what steps you will have to take in order to accomplish your dreams and desires. Keep a journal or word document with your life plan and the steps that you have to carry out to accomplish your goal.
When making your journal, focus on specific aspects of your future, like physical and mental health, your family, and your career, and how you want these aspects to look in your future. For example, think about whether you want to be a career or family-oriented, or if you see yourself as positive and healthy, instead of overweight and depressed.
In your journal, you should think about possibly catastrophic situations that are out of your control, like a sudden death in the family. While these situations are painful to think about, preparing for the worst situations can take a large amount of stress off both you and your family.
Preparing can be as simple as setting money aside from every paycheck to put into an emergency fund. It can also entail creating a family crisis plan for uncontrollable situations like a car accident or losing a job.
4.Dedicate time in your day for thinking about the future
Jeff Bezos, the president and CEO of internet-giant Amazon and richest man in the world (as of 2020), built his long-term thinking by setting two days aside each week to think about his future. On these unstructured days, he would browse the internet, write out his thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and generally let his mind wander.
Taking inspiration from Bezos, dedicate a specific time in your life to sit down and think about your future. During these sessions, write every thought down in a journal that can be used for reference later, and flesh out various scenarios in your head and how they would impact your life.
5.Create an action plan
The final tip to cultivate your long-term thinking is to create a real-time action plan that can be easily accessible and constantly updated. In your action plan, you should have specific plans for major life events with your family or work projects.
The action plan should be as specific as possible, with details such as when these events should happen, who is accountable for these events, and how they will happen along with their possible outcomes.
As an example, if you are wanting to pay off your student loan debt within the next few years, you should have an action plan that maps out how much you need to pay per month and keep it updated each time you make payment. You should also have a section that is dedicated to specific situations that could cause you to deviate from your original plan, like getting a tax return or promotion or losing your income.
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