We pick goals & pursue them because we want to achieve them.
When we’ve set our sights on something, it makes sense that we’d like to reach it as quickly as possible.
Given two paths – one that will take 6 months, and another that will take 6 years – that are equal in every other way, which do we choose?
Logically, we go for the 6-month path. Because unless there are compelling reasons to do so, we don’t see the value in delaying our attainment any longer than we need to.
Here’s the issue:
The 6-month path & the 6-year path are rarely created equally.
Some approaches are sustainable. They’re give us what we want without extracting too high a price in return.
Other approaches are unsustainable. They might seem like a good idea in the short-term, but there’s something wrong with them. Something that forces us to pay dearly just for using them.
When we’re evaluating different approaches from the starting line, it can be hard to tell a smart approach from a flawed one.
We’ve got a few tools we can rely on to overcome this limitation. Experience, forethought, expert advice, knowing ourselves & correcting for our biases…
But one of the best perspectives we can adopt?
Look at things over a longer time horizon.
The smaller the time horizon we judge a strategy over, the harder it is to separate the true “best” approach – the one which produces the most sustainable, long-term outcomes – from ones which create quick progress, but that set you up to fail over a longer period.
Put another way:
The best way to run a fast 10k isn’t to shoot off the starting line like you’re running for a 100M Olympic gold medal.
Likewise – unless your only task is to run in a straight line, your “top speed” isn’t how fast you can move. It’s how fast you can move safely: a speed that lets you navigate corners and negotiate obstacles without compromising your ability to keep going.
Like the runner bouncing anxiously on the starting line, sprinting seems like a good idea in the short-term. But it’s a flawed approach. All it does is create the the illusion of progress.
Rather than creating the results you care about, it’s extractive.
It reduces your chances of future success the longer you do it, and it diminishes your ability to come back the next day and do it again.
If reaching your goal matters, moving as fast as possible is rarely a good idea.
Instead, move as fast as sustainable.
Over time, the best results accrue to those who can stay in the game – those who don’t need to exit prematurely because they burned out early, sustained an injury, or ran out of road before hitting their stride.
The ideal strategy is the one that keeps you playing.