There is a great saying that we “overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can get done in a decade.”
Ever since I first heard this a year or so ago, it has stayed with me.
Is it true?
Sure, it is common for people to set one-year goals in January and start to adjust their expectations as the year seemingly flies by.
But, I also know many people – myself included – that set grandiose 10-year goals that would see them stretch beyond what some would consider reasonable expectations. Are we still underestimating what we are truly capable of?
Our plans for the coming year quickly get out of reach as distractions arise and we struggle to move away from the habits that keep us where we are right now. Much like the best-laid plans for the coming day, everything gets in the way and before you know, the day is over.
However, what about the 10-year plans? Why do we underestimate what we are capable of over such a long expanse of time when we have so many years to achieve it?
What happens?
As I was researching this point, I came across the word ‘Osmos’. Osmos is actually a game. In the game, you are an organism. You float around with other organisms of varying sizes. The goal is to grow. And, you grow by bumping into and absorbing other smaller organisms around you. However, there are organisms that are larger than you and if you bump into one of those, you are absorbed by them and your game ends.
The game of Osmos can be a good theory of how we grow and develop. We come across challenges that will stretch us. We overcome the challenge and the skills and wisdom we learned from it become part of us and we grow.
As we grow, we get bigger and can face larger and larger challenges. Challenges that we found too overwhelming years ago now seem easy to face because we have grown.
This is why I think we underestimate what we can achieve in a decade.
We make plans and goals from the point of growth we have today. We don’t take into consideration how much more skilled, developed and capable we will be over the coming years. We make plans for 10 year’s time from the knowledge and belief of what we are capable of today.
If you love learning, if you strive to be better and better all the time, if you strive to GROW, then, you will absolutely underestimate what you are capable of over a decade.
I hope you blow your mind.