Humans are notoriously bad at making long term decisions. Which might be the reason why too many founders focus solely on the short term, jump from short-lived plan to short-lived plan and never really go anywhere.
I recently read about Suzy Welch’s 10–10–10 rule which Chip and Dan Heath applied to businesses: Ask yourself if the outcome will be important 10 minutes from now, 10 months from and 10 years from now.
Applying these questions is an incredible way to not only deal with putting things, which happen to you, into perspective (e.g. a disagreement with a co-founder: does the confrontation serve a purpose 10 months from now? Or even 10 years from now?) but also focus you on the things which matter in the long term. And as we all know — building a company is something you should always do with a long term view.
As Jeff Bezos said: “We can’t realize our potential as people or as companies unless we plan for the long term.”