商业往事丨第81话：长期目标与短期目标

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长期目标与短期目标

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记得电影《林肯》（2012年）中的一些令人难忘的台词，其中林肯说：「早年我是个测量员，学到指南针的功用在于指出北方，它让你清楚方位。循此方向去，途间可能碰上的沙漠坑谷、泥沼洼地，指南针则未能预知这些坑坑洞洞。如果你锁定目标，一个劲儿冲去，不顾生死危难，很可能因此一事无成，反而身陷泥沼之中，试问：这样的结果，能知道方向又有何用 ?」电影《林肯》台词，丹尼尔・戴・刘易斯主演。

在日常工作时，我们经常将短期目标与长期目标混淆了。因此，常常很难知道现在该做什么。但短期和长期目标需要不同的战略。短期目标需要很大的灵活性来应对不断变化的环境，而长期目标需要长期一致的行为。虽然灵活性和一致性截然相反，但其间的诀窍在于知道何时使用哪种策略。即，我们如何调整我们的日常活动，以便我们能够实现短期和又兼顾长期目标？

假设我们的目标是往北。所以，指南针指示我们向北出发。然而，如果一路上我们意外地来到沼泽地，我们不会向前跳进沼泽。相反的，我们暂时改变路线，绕沼泽而行。一旦我们离开沼泽地，我们还是会恢复原来的航向：北方。看，我们的长期目标是北上，这需要在很长一段时间内保持一致性。但我们的短期目标——无论如何，其中之一——是不要陷入沼泽，这需要我们当前行动的灵活性。只有兼顾到我们短期和长期目标的不同需要，我们才能及时到达预期的目标。

原则上，实现一个人的长期目标听起来很简单：只要始终朝着最终目标前进，同时根据需要进行一些小的调整。然而，问题是，我们经常「见树不见林」。有时候，为了达到目标，我们自然而然地绕道而行，即使不是完全迷失，结果走远了，让我们偏离真正的方向。在这一点上，我们甚至可能忘记了或忽略了最初的目标是什么。但是偏离轨道是很自然的。因此，正是由于这个原因，我们需要偶尔停下来，评估我们在做什么，甚至我们试图去的地方。评估最初的目标对我们来说是否错误的，或者现在超出了我们的能力范围。因此，我们需要停下来，盘点一下现在对我们真正重要的事情，这样我们才能决定现在需要做什么。

这种想法对我们的职业生涯同样有效。我们有短期目标和长期目标，或者至少我们应该有。因此，我们必须不断作出调整，以保持短期目标和长期目标之间的适当平衡。就好像你想爬山一样你知道你的目标是达到顶峰。然而，你必须注意脚下的每一步，这样你就不会从悬崖上摔下来或被蛇咬伤。这意味着你需要灵活。

事实上，有时你可能需要先走下波才能走到上升路段。即使这样，你仍然牢记你的长期目标。但是，如果你发现你离你期望的方向太远了，那么是时候停下脚步，来评估你的行为了，这样你就不会偏离轨道了。专注于前进，真的很容易，以至于你可能没有意识到，其实你正朝着错误的方向前进。因此，定期评估你当前的行为，并考虑它们与您的最终目标的关系。通过正确平衡您的短期和长期行动，你将到达期望的目的地。

Long-Term Goals and Short-Term Goals

I remember some memorable lines from the movie Lincoln (2012), in which Lincoln said, “A compass, I learned when I was surveying, it’ll point you true north from where you’re standing. But it’s got no advice about the swamps and deserts and chasms that you’ll encounter along the way. If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead, heedless of obstacles and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp, what’s the use of knowing true north?”

In performing our daily activities, we often confuse short-term goals with long-term goals. So it can be difficult to know what to do in the moment. But short-term and long-term goals require different strategies. Short-term goals require a lot of flexibility in order to react to the changing environment, whereas long-term goals require consistent behavior over a protracted period of time. Although flexibility and consistency are diametrically opposed, the trick is in knowing when to use which strategy. That is, how can we adjust our activities such that we are able to work towards both short-term and long-term goals at the same time?

The goal in this particular case is to go north (why doesn’t matter for our purposes). So, using the compass, we set off in a northerly direction. However, if along the way we unexpectedly come to a swamp, we don’t just plunge forward into the swamp. Instead, we alter our course temporarily to go around the swamp. And once we’re beyond the swamp, we then resume our original heading: north. See, our long-term goal is to go north, which requires consistency over an extended period of time. But our short-term goal—one of them, anyway—is to not get mired down in a swamp, which requires flexibility in terms of our current movement. And only by carefully attending to the disparate needs of both our short-term and long-term goals will we get to the desired destination in a timely manner.

Accomplishing one’s long-term goal sounds simply enough in principle: just consistently move towards the end goal while making minor adjustments as needed along the way. However, the problem is that we often “lose sight of the forest for the trees,” to quote the old saying. That is, sometimes, the little detours that we naturally take along the way to our goal can get us really sidetracked, if not downright lost. At that point, we may even have forgotten or lost sight of what the original goal was. But getting sidetracked is natural. So, it’s for that reason that we need to stop occasionally, such that we can evaluate what we’re doing and even where we’re trying to go. After all, it’s possible that our original goal was the wrong goal for us, or is now beyond our reach. So we need to pause and take stock to decide what’s really important to us now, such that we can decide what we need to do now.

Such thinking works similarly for our careers. We have short-term goals and long-term goals, or at least we probably should have. So we have to continually make adjustments to maintain the right balance between attending to short-term and long-term goals. It’s like if you wanted to climb a mountain. You know that your goal is to get to the top. However, you have to watch each step along the way, such that you don’t fall off a cliff or get bitten by a snake. That means that you need to be flexible.

In fact, sometimes you might have to take a step down in order to eventually go up. And in doing so, you still keep your long-term goal in mind. But if you find that you’re getting too far off from your desired direction, then it’s time to stop and evaluate your actions, so that you don’t get sidetracked. It’s really easy to focus so much on moving ahead that you don’t realize that you’re moving in the wrong direction. So, regularly evaluate your current actions and consider how they relate to your ultimate goal. By properly balancing your short-term and long-term actions, you will get to your desired destination.