Making Longterm Plays

In an age where we expect everything quickly it seems that it can be harder to have the patience to endure long term investments.

People are career hopping between companies and entire job types more today than at any time in history.  Employees who want to progress up the ranks find that a quicker route is to job hop.  Ambitious employees are not content to put in 10 years at a company before getting a promotion.

Investors also look for quick gains.  Few are willing to park their money for multiple years in order to get rewarded with modest gains. We look for the quick buck.  Day trading to make 1000’s of dollars in hours instead of months.

This psychology has repercussions in our endeavours.  It becomes hard to focus for years on a blog to build an audience or create a piece of software in our spare time, or start a business.  These long term goals take time and time is the one thing that we too impatient to wait for.

However, being conscious of this is the first step to being empowered enough to account for our natural tendencies and make long term decisions that are in our best interest.