If I asked to you to name the largest deciding factor in the success and social status of the world’s most affluent and happy people, what would you guess it was? Would you say it was being born into a good family? Would you say it was a good education or perhaps sheer, raw talent? But any way you guess it, you’d probably be wrong. In fact, the greatest contributing factor to an upwardly mobile social status or an ever-increasing bank account is the ability to plan your future in the long term. And long term doesn’t mean planning next year or even the next five years. Long term planning means projecting yourself twenty or even thirty and forty years into the future and planning your every day toward achieving those goals over all else. Think you’ve got what it takes?

The Research

In the few years before 1970, Harvard University sociologist Edward Banfield conducted research into what behaviors and social factors could predict wealth, affluence and success. Banfield was using what we today would call “success modeling.” What he discovered, and would eventually publish in his controversial book “The Unheavenly City,” was that the only accurate predictor of success was what he referred to as “long-time perspective.” You see, Banfield studied education, race, family, upbringing, intelligence and behavior and found that the only thing that was held constant in those that succeeded was the ability and the habit of planning out their time not in the increments of hours, days or weeks, but in decades! 

That bears repeating: the only factor was how far into the future a person routinely planned.

Let that sink in for a second because it’s not a stretch to say that that information could change your life.

So how far into the future do you plan?

If you’re like most folks it’s usually to the next paycheck. We plan from pay period to pay period or, if we’re really on the ball, even a whole year in advance, but that’s where most of us stop. Think about all of the people you know who don’t even plan more than an hour into the future. Usually they make excuses like, “living in the moment” or “being spontaneous,” but never mistake good time management for being trapped, or stuffy. Learn how to use your time to its fullest and you’ll find you suddenly have more of it available to you. If you’re one of those people who rarely plans ahead, don’t feel bad because success is not out of your reach. The beauty of success modeling is that the information you receive from research like Banfield’s can be put to immediate, practical use.

The Steps You Can Take:

1. Discover Your Dream -  this is the hardest step on this list and there is just no getting around it. You have to find what it is that you love because that’s what you’re going to be working toward every single day. And don’t be afraid to plan big. Who wants to look thirty years into the future and imagine themselves still at a job they hate or retiring penniless? If you’re going to work your entire life for something, you might as well make it something that you actually want. Dream big or don’t dream at all.

I know some people might feel that planning that far ahead is all well and good for someone in their twenties, but what if you’re only a few year away from retirement? What if you feel you’re too old to start dreaming up something new? Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re never too old to start working toward your dreams and I’ve seen the proof of it. My father has worked in professional broadcasting all his life and one of the people he’s had the pleasure of becoming friends with is Rhubarb Jones, the most famous man in radio here in Atlanta and a man I have always known as Uncle Rhubarb. This man, well into his fifties and well over thirty years into an incredibly successful radio career decided to go back to college and in 2006 earned his Masters Degree in the hopes of becoming a college professor when he finally decides to hang up the headphones. Rhubarb was a smart enough man to look well into his golden years and find what it was he still had left in him. Don’t make the mistake of believing the myth that beyond forty or fifty is the backside of life. There is no hill. 

Start imagining the world you want. If you don’t know where you want to go you’ll never get there.

2. Get Over Your Fear of Disappointment - even more debilitating than a fear of failure is a fear of disappointment. We’re too afraid to plan ahead because we don’t want to face the disappointment if we fail to achieve our goals. We don’t want to write down a to-do list because we’re too afraid of not getting every item crossed off. Dreaming big isn’t a pleasurable experience because the thought of potential disappointments is always lingering. I know that, for me anyway, it wasn’t always like that. I know that when I was a kid, I used to dream big everyday. I fell asleep every night dreaming of the wonderful things I wanted to happen in my life. I spent many a school period daydreaming wondrous things that I could achieve and I always told myself that I would never loose that desire to imagine and dream. But I, like so many others, was ambushed by adulthood and somewhere along the line, my dreaming days fell by the wayside. I never knew it was gone until it was too late.

I lost my desire to dream because I was overwhelmed by the fear of never achieving those dreams. To never achieve my dreams was far better than trying and being disappointed by my own failure. I psyched myself out before I even had a chance to begin. But once I realized my loss, I took the necessary steps to regain it again. Now I can live with hope that my dreams may come to fruition instead of in the fear that they will ultimately fail. If the fear of disappointment has you, shake it off now and start looking toward hope, because that’s what your dreams are for.
 

3. Start Being Okay With Discomfort -  we have a great problem with discomfort in western society. We avoid it if at all possible, even if it could bring us the things we desire. We don’t want to exercise because it’s hot, sweaty and painful. We want the weight loss that the exercise could bring, but we don’t want to have to work for it. If you want to start developing a long-time perspective you have got to start being okay with discomfort. You must learn to face a little bit of pain and suffering in the short term so that you can find success and wellbeing in the long term. Once you have discovered what it is you want so far down the road, you must develop the courage to do anything to get it. You must learn to push through the discomfort of today, if that discomfort can bring you closer to your dreams.  

Start getting yourself into the mindset of doing your important tasks first, before you can talk yourself out of them. It’s a universal rule that we will always procrastinate on those tasks that will bring us the most success. This being the case, you must learn to see past the short term discomfort of your work and to the long term benefits it will bring. Keep your eye on the prize and grit your teeth when you need to.

4. Have Courage Enough to Make Goals - let’s face it, goals are scary. For one thing, we generally don’t like making promises to yourself that we’re not sure we can keep. We don’t like getting our hopes up and most of the time we just really have no idea of what we could feasibly achieve. We sit down to make our goals, become too frightened to dream big and start aiming as low as possible. We’ve gotten so used to aiming low that we’re unaware that we can aim any higher. Start finding the courage to make big goals. Don’t say you want a 3% raise just because that’s all you think you could get. Goals aren’t meant to be the things you think you could settle for, goals are like sign posts to success.

Have the guts to stand up for what you really want. Put them in writing, in plain view, and look at them everyday. Tell yourself that no matter what happens, come hell or high water, you can and will achieve them. It takes more than a little courage. It takes more than a little perseverance, but just remember that when the going gets tough, refer to number three.

Never Again Be Bogged Down

You already know that time management is an indispensable skill. You already know that planning out your days and making the most of your time can present you with amazing rewards in both your personal and professional life but you might not be taking your skills as far as they can go. Remember that the only predicting factor for success has nothing to do with the school you went to or who you know, it has everything to do with how far into the future you can plan. Take what you already know about managing your time and your talents and project yourself twenty or even thirty years into the future and write down what you see. What kind of job do you have? What is your home like? Your family like? What is life for you going to be thirty years down the yellow brick road? 

However you see it, write it down and review those plans from time to time. Once you have this plan written down, you will never again be bogged down in indecision or prone to procrastination. When you come to a fork in the road, figure out which one leads you closer to those plans. When you find yourself in hard times, look toward your goals and know that once through this moment of discomfort you will be one step closer to where you want to stay. So knowing what you know now, you must ask yourself the big question: Right now, this instant, how far into the future have you planned?

Daniel Roach is dedicated to a no-nonsense view of personal development. Through his website and blog he is dedicated to helping people make lasting changes through lasting effort. If you enjoyed this post and are serious about your personal growth, consider subscribing to his RSS feed.