Tag: Fredrick Law Olmsted

Why you should focus more of your efforts on long term results.

I have always thought about the long term. I don’t focus on immediate gratification. Because long-term goals pack much more satisfaction than short-term rewards. One is like a king-sized candy bar. The other is like the mini version you eat in half a bite. (If it were possible to eat anything other than apple sauce in half a bite.)

One of my favorite examples of long-term thinking comes from famed landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmstead. Check out his quote below:

“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 Olmstead

Olmstead wasn’t thinking about Central Park being finished in the year he began crafting it. He was thinking far into the future. He was focused on a time decades later when the trees would be fully mature. When Mother Nature would finish what he started. And when the park would be the inspiration for a coffee shop on the hit sitcom Friends.

What distant effects are you working on now? What investments are you making today in your personal or professional life that you expect to pay out years from now? If you don’t have any it’s time to think longer term.

Key Takeaway

You are building your future today. Ensure your long-term successes by establishing habits that will create a steady, positive, compounding effect. Make each day of your life add to your legacy. Remember, long term results take longer to achieve. But they offer the greatest return on your invested time.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

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

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.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

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