Not now, later: A journey through the long-term thinking

A copious number of neuroscience researches showcased how a more long-term-oriented mindset could shape your way of thinking and approach to the world, trying to avoid instant gratification. However, this doesn’t apply merely to psychology.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

In a nutshell

Specifically, what do we point out when we refer to envisioning a long-term goal?

In its basic instance, this word means the possibility of an individual to avoid something now, to be rewarded, greater and better, later on. It’s a huge chunk of the psychological side of each human being.

Speaking, inside our brain, there are several chemical substances that are involved in our overall health state, the neurotransmitters.

Their set is built up by:

• Glutamate
• Dopamine
• Noradrenaline
• Serotonin
• Histamine

Each of them is involved in different functions, but their common tasks are to preserve the health of the person and pop-up physical somatic signals if there’s something in ourselves that’s not working properly. At the end of the day, our body is a complex machine, and, keeping this in mind, we have always to take care of it.

By the way, In the array of all the neurotransmitters, there’s a specific one whose objective is to feel a person satisfied instantaneously: Dopamine.

Let’s deepen what it’s about.

What is Dopamine: Is it beneficial for us?

The Covid-19 Pandemic has brought with it multiple adverse events. One of its unlucky outcomes has been the influence it had on the Mental Health of almost all people: Anxiety, ADHD, and Depression are just a few of the overall mental disorders that have been subject to a dramatic rise, in the last pair of years. And, obviously, Dopamine plays a huge role in this landscape.

Anyway, the main feature of Dopamine is to release a temporary satisfaction sensation to a human being, as an output of different actions, such as tasting some junk food or simply avoiding a run or an easier walk.

How is Dopamine involved in these actions? Just by giving an immediate reward.

But, this isn’t always so positive for someone.

Now or later, that is the question

Besides all the psychological theories about how our brain works, this pattern could be applied almost to anything encircled in our life, from work to study, through relationship management: Sometimes taking a deep breath is better to lose control instantaneously.

Anyone who’s actively involved in the startup world, yet the freelance one, knows this aspect perfectly: Things and important milestones have never been reached overnight, and behind something apparently successful, a huge amount of failures, time, and resources lie.

If we take for example the major tech companies in the world, it has taken a large amount of time, even years or decades, to build from scratch the concept behind them and properly cement them as figure leaders in their own field.

What can I do to get to this mentality?

Replace the short term with the long term isn’t a so easy task to accomplish. But the will of every person is exactly like a muscle of our body: the more you make practice and use them, the better.

The following are some fingertip suggestions in order to achieve it:

• Focus on your skills and character: The investment in yourself always pays in the best interests, AKA start reading books, listening to helpful podcasts, create your own like-minded people-based network. Carry on doing this and in some months, you’re going to turn in a better version of yourself.
• Visualization: A pillar of Napoleon Hill's bestseller Think and grow rich, all the people who have learned the practice of long-term thinking, have always visualized and felt the sensation of reaching their goals. Moreover, visualization is also important to always be creative and acquire an idea-generator mind.
• Growth mindset: The moment we are born, we’re immediately able to soak the input from our surrounding environment. The majority of people guess that If we’re going to grow up in a toxic environment, we won’t be able to perform at our best and that’s going to be something we’ll have to grapple with throughout our life. But, good news: It’s always possible to join the growth-mindset group, that set of people who strongly believe it’s always possible to scale up our mentality, regardless of the past events we’ve been involved in.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Then… Now or later?

Well, thus far we’ve analyzed what is a long-term mindset, and its difference from a short one, deepening the aspect related to neurosciences.

However, regardless of this story… It’s always up to you.

Thank you very much for reading my story, I really hope you enjoyed it!

Would you like to support my personal blog by purchasing me a coffè? If you would push the below button!