To create more success and more impact focus on the long-term.

There are 2 main time frames you must always consider: the short-term and the long-term. (There may also be one in between those 2, but I have no idea what it would be called.)

The short-term is full of basic needs, primal desires, and eating the first marshmallow they give you. The short term is about scrolling social media, watching TV, and eating stuff with ingredients you can’t pronounce.

The long-term is where the magic is. Long-term thinking, planning, and preparation enable you to create a great life. It enables you to build momentum. It helps you create things that last. And it empowers you to change the world.

Efforts focused on the long term create the most significant return on your invested time, energy, and money.

Consider this quote from famed landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted (the original FLO) who created New York’s Central Park, Montreal’s Mount Royal Park, the grounds at The Biltmore Estate, and the landscape at the Chicago World’s Fair:

I have all my life been considering distant effects and always sacrificing immediate success and applause to that of the future. In laying out Central Park we determined to think of no result to be realized in less than forty years.”

– Fredrick Law Olmsted

Key Takeaway

Always think about what you can do over the long term. Consider what you can create, contribute and change over your lifetime, and beyond. Be willing to make sacrifices in the short term to magnify your impact deep into the future.

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+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.