When you want to be able to power ahead of the competition and see them in your rear view mirror you’ll have probably heard the phrase ‘No Pain, No Gain’. What we’re going to do is delve a little deeper and see why to be successful you may have to make fewer sacrifices than you think…
What is Pain?
Clearly we’re not talking physical pain or discomfort. What we’re talking about is sacrifice, self discipline, and staying the course. Nobody successful has got there by quitting, but they also know how to find the right balance.
It’s not about burying yourself every single day of the week just so you can say you have done so. That’s a guaranteed way to burn yourself out and it’ll cause you to resent your work before you know it.
Why Does the Short Term ‘Hurt’
What we really mean by this is that to get an idea off the ground you’re going to have to work extra hard for a period of time. Once things are up and running you’ll be able to start delegating and focusing on key problem areas, but in the early stages everything will feel like a problem area.
By focusing on laying the foundations you’ll be able to set your big idea on the path to success, but it will take a lat more of your time, energy, and effort than you perhaps thought. There’s no shame in this and it’s completely normal. So, you can you go about it in a productive manner?
Transitioning From Short to Long Term
In business as in life you’ll need to be thinking about the short and long term future in parallel. When you’re starting things up you’ll probably be so engrossed in the here and now and trying to prove the concept that you won’t invest all that much thought into the long term. What you always need however is a roadmap.
This is the plan that will see you transition from short to long term thinking as your business grows and starts to go from strength to strength. Too many people end up staying engrossed in the day to day and lose sight of what their initial grand plan was. This is because switching can feel like you’re neglecting your project because you’re not constantly battling the day to day.
In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth…
Why Long Term Matters
The beauty of long term thinking is that it’s what allows you to take your business in the direction you want it to go. If you fail to think of it and dismiss it as needless blue sky thinking then you’ll soon stagnate.
Long term thinking is what sets the tone for the day to day. It’s what informs your choices. And it’s why you started working all the hours on the clock in the first place. If you spend 15 minutes at the end of each day asking yourself how what you did that day fed into the big picture then you’ll be on the path to long term thinking.