The Long Game | In-Between the Pages

We spend an enormous amount of time focused on a very short game. In today’s instant access to everything, we need to focus on long term planning and thinking. The short term plays create short term gains and very often no long term sustainability.

Let’s take and athlete to make my point. Usain Bolt the fastest man alive today didn’t go to the olympics and win a gold medal with one week of training. His climb started in high school. It took years of training which took him to today at age 30 as the most recognized natural athlete in the world. When his running career is over, he established the Usain Bolt Foundation that will far out live him. He is engaged at playing a very long game.

What keeps us from playing a long game? Here’s one of the easiest things that get in the way.

We focus and spend to much time at trying to fix our weaknesses. We won’t be able to fix our weaknesses to be the equal of our natural strengths. Usain Bolt did not win gold medals focused on running a marathon. Bolt figured out its not his natural strength. Sprinting is and he pours everything he has in his arsenal at that strength. Focusing and amplifying your strengths will get you on track.

You might be so new in the game of your journey you don’t know what your natural strengths are. There are plenty of options out there that will get you started. One of the most popular is Strengths Finder 2.0 by the Gallup Strengths center. They dedicate their work to localizing what your top five natural strengths are. The assessment can through their website will give you your specific sbuy. Or, when you buy the book you will get a code that allows you to take the survey. I recommend it.

You have two basic choices. You can spend 30-50% of your life going after the small stuff playing a short game day after day. In the end you will wish you had spent that energy somewhere else and be stuck with a lot of regret. Or, you can get in tune with the best version of yourself, play to it, and invest in it. Choose your natural strength and live a longer game.

Bolt’s simple quote above makes it clear. Stop playing and wasting time with short sided plays. Find who you are. Make a long term investment in those strengths and optimize yourself. You will find a very enriching life by doing it.

Shawn