Play the long game

You may well have heard the phrase, “… playing the long game”. What does that mean?

According to the global media company Forbes, which is focused on business, investing, technology, leadership and lifestyle, the concept is fairly straightforward: Playing the long game means paying a small price today to make tomorrow’s tomorrow simpler. If you can do this long enough to get results, it will feed on itself. And this concept can be applied personally and professionally.

The previous newsletter had a very simple graph that showed how making healthy or unhealthy choices did not show much difference in outcome for a while, but then the divergence became noticeable and when it did so those differences became far apart very quickly.

Those differences being, in the very simplest terms, health or ill-health. 

So when I saw the quote above from Matt Griswold about thinking in decades and acting in days it really struck a chord. 

For a lot of us January is all about setting goals. Often those are big and audacious goals. 

That is awesome.

Goals are great.

But how will you achieve them?

Hitting those targets will involve action. Often that will have to be consistent daily action, or rather it will be the sum of lots of small, seemingly inconsequential, actions that build upon one another over months and years. And that is where that Forbes definition of playing the long game could be thought of as wrong. It talks about paying a small price. I prefer to think of making a small commitment to action.

This is especially true with our health.

Do you have to eat and exercise ‘perfectly’ every day?

No.

But being conscious of what you are eating, and how much you are exercising is a great start. Once you have that insight, you can begin to do things just a little bit differently for healthier outcomes.

As ever, start small and build from there. Going large with the latest diet fad or exercise craze or health ‘hack’ (anyone else really dislike that word?) may give you some short term wins, but is ultimately unsustainable over the course of more than a few weeks. 

Starting small allows your body and brain to accept what you are doing as the new normal. And then when you make small tweaks and build up what you are doing your body will be able to cope with the changes imposed upon it. And so over time you suddenly realise that you are a long way from your starting point with a complete shift in mindset, like this client of mine who has completely shifted their mindset over the last couple of years:

“I’m in my mid 50s and realised a couple of years ago that I wanted to take some action to protect and improve my health.  I have a family and plenty of living still to do.  I wanted to be fitter, leaner and stronger but the thought of joining a gym filled me with dread.  I have too many memories of PE lessons at school where kids who were no good at sport were humiliated rather than encouraged.  I had no idea how I was going to achieve my aim.  Then someone introduced me to David Williams. I’ve been working with David at Power of One Fitness for 18 months now and cannot recommend him highly enough.  He takes the time to get to know his clients and figure out what motivates them, and more importantly, what doesn’t.  David understands what makes me tick.  He isn’t afraid to challenge me but does it in a way that feels really encouraging and never humiliating.  He is always keen to celebrate the small successes that have combined to bring me so far in the time I’ve worked with him.  This is a million miles away from those awful PE lessons at school.  I never thought I’d feel so at home in a gym, or enjoy workouts as much as I do.”

That testimonial and others similar to it make my heart sing. It is proof of concept. It shows that this stuff actually works.

So what small actions will you do to start hitting those long term goals?

If you’d like a chat, click the gold button below and let’s start on getting you healthier.