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Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday!
tl;dr Life is a balance of playing the long and short games. Both are essential to the human experience, and the most successful people I’ve met, read, or heard about do it with such aptitude. Here, we will conduct an assessment to determine when our actions fall into the long game or the short game, and from that, decide what we can do to improve the balance.
Life is the quintessential example of balancing two truths. Life is short, so delaying all gratification for “later” is a fool’s errand because we are not promised “later.” Simultaneously, if we indulge in all of our emotions, then, if we’re so lucky to arrive at “later,” we will have squandered our resources and left ourselves with nothing.
Do you have a grasp on how well you balance the long and short games? Do you save for retirement and still enjoy vacations? Do you feed your body with nutrients most of the time and allow yourself to enjoy your favorite treat once in a while? Do you strength train now so that you can feel good in your body and know you’ll be able to live autonomously down the line?
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps you’re really skilled at saving but feel guilty about spending on the experiences you enjoy the most. On the other hand, you may be comfortable putting your hard-earned money to work, but you don’t have a retirement plan. You may have your finances locked in, but struggle with balancing your physical health or your relationships. Consider for a moment where in your life you would benefit most from evaluating your short and long-term strategies.
The short-term game is played to appeal to our reptilian brains (fight, flight, feed, and reproduction). These reflexes are adaptive for survival, but maladaptive for the current, longer-term human lifespan. When we give in to junk food, doom-scrolling, gossiping, and extraneous shopping, it’s not without benefit. We need calories, social validation, and physical resources to survive as humans. And unless you’re a robot, it’s not about if you engage in these behaviors, but when.
If you catch yourself doing something that makes you feel good now, but later you feel guilty, empty, or blah, it is likely a short-game action. Long-game actions might feel more blah in the moment, but your future self will benefit. And again, it’s not about only engaging in one or the other, but how you strike a balance between the two.
Finances are the simplest example. It feels good to buy something new. The joy of opening a package, putting on a new pair of leggings, using a new kitchen gadget, I mean, what’s not to like? But if you don’t have a secure financial plan for the future, the guilt of spending over budget or insecurity about not knowing what your budget is sets in. Instead, if you have automatic deposits set up into your retirement accounts (the blah), you can buy that new pair of leggings without guilt (the feel good). This is playing the short and long-term game skillfully.
In each aspect of our lives, we can survey how well we’re balancing the two. Do you have a plan set up for your future? And if you do, do you also feel good about how you currently manage yourself?
A good test is considering your child (or pretend you have a child); are you excited about how they are living their lives, and feel confident they are well established for their futures? If the answer is a genuine yes, then you’re probably balancing the short and long-term games well. If you feel like they are not getting the most out of life or they’re not secure in their futures, then you have some work to do.
This is the perfect time of year to run your analysis. The rush of the holidays is over, and there are several weeks of winter left, which, in my humble opinion, is the perfect time to work hard. We’re stuck inside anyway, socializing is usually at its lowest, and we have the potential of the new year still hanging in the balance.
How do you play the long and short games? How can you win?
If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM.
This week, my podcast recommendation is from Michael Smoak’s The HigherUp Podcast, “What it Actually takes To Live Your Dream Life.”
With that, let’s make the most of this January cold!
Until next time,
Shannon
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