The secret to success of many experts lies in long-termism, and they never stingy in sharing their experiences, but why can't we follow the map and achieve the same success as them?

. The fallacy of long-termism

Long-termism is a simple truth and a most correct truth.

The secret to success of many experts lies in long-termism, and they never stingy in sharing their experiences, but why can't we follow the map and achieve the same success as them?

This is because it is easy to know the truth and is difficult to do.

The fallacy of long-termism is: you understand everything you say, but you will be useless as soon as you do it.

The moat of an expert is that he really invested enough time to train himself, even if he told you the method, but because you can't achieve his efforts. So, you still cannot achieve his achievements.

Long-termism is such a principle that is most anti-human and hard to adhere to.

Human nature is difficult to resist short-term temptation.

It’s like knowing that you want to lose weight, but you can’t resist the temptation of sweets, you can’t resist the temptation of resting for a day today and not exercising for the time being.

So even if we know the principles of long-termism, we still cannot achieve long-termism.

Just like Buffett said: "Because no one wants to become rich slowly."

But long-termism is still the secret to the success of experts. Today I want to talk to you through this article in depth about long-termism and how we achieve long-termism. I hope it will inspire you.

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. Why should we adhere to long-termism?

2.1 Enough times to make good things happen

Let’s look at a problem first.

Assuming that you have a 1% chance of success in your life, can you definitely achieve 1 success by doing 100 things?

actually doesn't have the result.

You may have done things at once, or you may have to persist until 10,000 times before you can get things done.

The meaning of adhering to long-termism is to let efforts create good luck for us.

Just like some of the useless theory that we have now, someone does not need to study, and he has earned tens of millions on himself, so is reading meaningless?

is not the case. When luck comes, anyone can succeed. You can earn 5 million by buying a lottery ticket, but how do you ensure that luck can favor you? You can't promise it.

So how can we increase our probability of success besides uncontrollable luck?

The secret lies in long-termism.

Only when you persist for a long enough time and repeat enough times can your probability of success increase. If you do something with a success rate of 100 times, the probability value is 1; if you do 10,000 times, the probability value is 100.

We cannot control our luck, but we can keep working hard.

Why should we adhere to long-termism?

A highly praised answer on the Internet says this:

Because only long-termists can achieve final success "necessarily"; non-long-termists can only achieve "accidental" success, and then fall into mediocrity under repeated basic probability events.

enough repetitions to get a definite probability.

The significance of long-termism is that the more you persist, the luckier you are.

2.2 The magic of compound interest requires the blessing of long-termism

Our thoughts are often linear, but this kind of linear thinking often makes us miss the real opportunity.

Take investment as an example. We always feel that with an annualized rate of return of 10% per year, I should make 10% in the first year, and another 10% in the second year, and so on.

But the reality may be that in the first year you make 10%, the second year you lose 40%; in the third year you make 10%, and in the fourth year you make 200%; the returns are not linear, but full of randomness.

The magic of compound interest is that it is always mediocre in the early stage, and it will always make rapid progress until it breaks through the critical point.

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You will find that the difference between compound interest and simple interest is almost the same in the early stage. Only in the later stages do compound interest begin to make rapid progress.

One of the important significance of adhering to long-termism is to be friends of time and give compound interest time to show its power.

stock god Buffett earned 99.8% of his wealth after he was 50 years old.

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The miracle of compound interest must be performed under long-termism.

. How to adhere to long-termism?

3.1 A daytime trial

Founder of Hillhouse Capital Zhang Lei In the book "Value", he said:

"Long-termism is not only a methodology, but also a value. He does not strive for the first place, and he is constantly talking."

Many of us know that long-termism is good, but we are afraid of the difficulty of long-termism.

is like running a marathon. 42 kilometers sounds scary and it is a long way off to run.

But smart people know how to break down goals and turn long-term goals into specific short-term goals.

MeituanWang Xing told such a story in a speech.

Before December 1911, no one had reached the Antarctic.

The first to reach the South Pole was a name that was left in history. At that time, all the greatest explorers and people with a spirit of adventure wanted to be the first to eat crabs in .

The South Pole is located at 90 degrees south latitude, and the adventure usually starts from 82 degrees south latitude. When you reach the South Pole, you have to turn back to the starting point. The round trip is more than 2,200 kilometers.

Finally, two competitive teams set out at the same time at about the same time. They are the Amundsen team from Norway, with a total of 5 people, and the Scott team from the UK, with seventeen people.

Who do you think can become the first team to reach the South Pole?

The result was that Amundsen's team became the first expedition to resist the South Pole, which was recorded in the history of mankind, and the five people successfully returned to the starting point; while Scott's team was one month behind Amundsen's team to resist the South Pole, and because the time was late, the weather was even worse, 17 of them were wiped out during the journey and were unable to return to the starting point.

Later someone summarized their strategy and found an important reason.

Amundsen team, regardless of the weather, insists on moving forward about 30 kilometers every day. Scott's team is more at will. When the weather is good, they will make great progress. They walk forty or fifty or even sixty kilometers a day, and when the weather is bad, they may even sleep in the tent.

Facts have proved that Amundsen's team's strategy is fruitful.

Long-term goals are made up of short-term goals. We don’t need to stare at the 2200 kilometers of difficulties. The key is to persist in walking 30 kilometers every day.

The first priority of achieving long-term goals is to maintain a stable rhythm, and no matter how far the road is, there will be a day to arrive.



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3.2 Design an incentive mechanism for yourself

Charlie Munger made a summary of the psychology of misjudgment of humans. The first principle is: humans are affected by motivation.

The difficulty of adhering to long-termism is that it has no feedback.

You don’t know if you have made progress, and no one feels it’s in vain if you can’t see progress.

People who can adhere to long-termism must know how to respect and conform to human nature.

So, they often set artificial feedback and motivation for themselves.

In the book "Wealthier, Wiseer, Happier", investor Slip said:

A practical trick is to "reward yourself in the short term". You can imagine all the benefits you may enjoy in the future after choosing to ignore your immediate desires. In this way, you associate delayed satisfaction with happiness, "you are more likely to accept it."

combines the happiness of achieving results after long-term persistence and short-term delayed satisfaction, and imagine the happiness after success. This is a reward for achieving each short-term goal.

At the same time, you can also apply another strategy, Charlie Munger calls it "Grandma's Rules"

Grandma's Rules are to require children to eat carrots before eating dessert.

applies to your persistence in long-termism, which means first completing tasks that you don’t like but must complete, and then rewarding yourself to do what you like.

For example: After get off work, you must first complete the tasks of reading, learning, and writing, and then reward yourself with 2 games.

Li Xiaolai talked about his personal experience. When he needed to apply for an English teacher in New Oriental , he needed to recite 20,000 vocabulary. Then he thought that New Oriental teachers could have an annual salary of about 1 million yuan, which means that each word is worth 50 yuan. For every word he memorized, he imagined that he had earned 50 yuan. Therefore, he was full of passion for memorizing words, and he memorized words every day as if he was picking up money.

We must adhere to long-termism and cannot rely solely on perseverance. The perseverance of most of us is actually not strong.

is good at adapting to human nature and can often achieve better results.

3.3 Use habits to practice long-termism

Developing a good habit is something that accompanys your life, and this is the most painless long-termism.

When you are used to brushing your teeth in the morning and evening every day, you never feel pain, because you have solidified the behavior of brushing your teeth into a habit.

Habits are the behavior we are used to without thinking.

A important way to adhere to long-termism is to develop a good habit.

So how should we develop habits?

Psychologist Fogge summarized the three elements of behavior in "Fugger's Behavior Model".

Foger behavior model, to sum up in one sentence: B=MAP.

behavior (Behaviour) occurs, requiring motivation, ability and prompt to appear simultaneously.



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The secret of developing habits is hidden among the three elements of motivation, ability and prompts.

1. clarify the motivation.
2. improves ability, or reduces difficulty.
3. add prompt.

First of all, you need to clarify your willingness to do things. Why are you willing to do something? Taking exercise as an example, what are the reasons why you insist on exercise every day?

In order to have a slim figure? For a healthy life? In order to be able to eat and drink happily?

Write down your motivation.

Secondly, make your persistence impossible to fail. Make our behavior easier. It is difficult to exercise for 30 minutes a day, but what about 1 minute a day? You can do this easily. This is the famous micro-habit strategy.

Finally, the prompt for the design behavior to occur. For example, set an alarm clock at 9 pm every day to remind yourself that it is time to start exercising.

collects 3 elements, keeping patience and developing habits has become a not difficult thing.

Aristotle said: Each of us is forged by our repeated actions.

Practicing long-termism is to shape your life and live for your ideal you.