3 Questions To Help You Think Long-Term

I spend most of my days searching for thinking prompts, questions, and other tools for thinking as a writer at TemplatesForThinking.com.

From my experience, good questions are among the most powerful tools we have.

Quotes and ideas are useful, but there’s a subtle shift that happens when you put a question-mark behind something.

It becomes dialogical, and your mind can’t help but go to work on it.

A question takes you from passive to active. They pull you into the conversation.

I’m not the only one who understands this.

Famously, Tim Ferriss is a firm believer in the power of questions. You can find a PDF of his favorites here.

We're often limited in our thinking by asking the wrong questions. They guide your attention to such an extent that they form your perceived reality. Showing you some parts of it, while veiling others.

Ask the right question, however, and you'll likely experience instantaneous insight or see novel posibilities emerge.

The CIA had this in mind when they developed the "Phoenix Checklist". Their agents use this universal question-set to solve problems.

Thinking Long Term

I’ll not try to convince you that thinking long-term is important, or explain to you why it’s hard to do.

We all get that.

Rather, here are a few questions that help you redirect your focus and change your perspective:

Can your current habits carry you to your desired future?

You may have vast plans and ambitious goals you’d like to accomplish in the future.

But — contrary to popular belief, you won’t have the abundance of time and energy you take for granted when you envision your future. You’ll struggle with motivation, obligations, worries, and all the rest.

The only way you’ll ensure future success is through cultivating the habits required.

Set the structure that allows you to win in the long run.

Your better tomorrow stems from what you do today.

What should you do more of this decade? What should you do less of?

Early January, we tend to ask ourselves what we should do more or less of in the coming 12 months.

We rarely zoom out and ask the same questions about the coming decade.

Thinking through this perspective can shift how you see things. Perhaps it’ll make it easier to see which things matter in the long run.

Most of us could benefit from eliminating a few things, people, or habits from our lives. We contribute to our own struggle in many ways.

Asking yourself these questions may help you identify what to remove.

Imagine yourself ten years into the future. What will you wish you had spent time on today?

This question helps you apply the long-term view to your actions today.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the busyness of your present life, and stress out about things that won’t matter.

Recalibrate your perspective and stop doing inconsequential busy work. Do the things that matter and keeps you on track for your long-term goals.

For More Questions…

Some of these questions were gathered from James Clear’s 3–2–1 Thursday newsletter. It’s one of the most popular newsletters in the world, and I find it to be the most useful.

It holds true to its promise; "the most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web".

My favorite part is the end, where he shares a useful and thought-provoking question.

I’ve found them so useful I collected all 116 of them.

If you’re still not satisfied, you can sign up at Templates For Thinking — where we’ve gathered a huge (and evergrowing) database of questions, thinking tools, and thought exercises to help you activate your mind.

And — It’s absolutely free to try out!