Long-term Vs. Mid-term Goals

When people are choosing between short-term and long-term goals it is pretty straightforward. They succumb to their impulses or they follow their plans for delayed gratification. Often it is a matter of training and awareness to control oneself when you have a choice like this. Also these choices often can be compared to the choices of other people, so you can observe their choices and consequences of such choices.

But sometimes people have choices between long-term and mid-term goals. For example, a person can change his job for a higher salary or he can continue working in the same place, at the same time learning some useful skills to get a better job and a higher salary in one or two years. Surely you can find normative theories for cases like this, which may account future discounting and some other things.

In the same time for longer term plans you have to take into account a number of risks: something can change and you plans may be not so beneficial for you as you planned. But even if this is a decision under uncertainty, it doesn’t mean that you should give up making a decision and stick to a default option. I intend to show that long-term decisions are not as complicated and scared as they may appear.

Let’s continue with my example of choosing between one job and learning, and another job without learning. This decision affects two time frames, with a division at a point from one to two years from the current moment. It means that we should consider both options before the division point and after it, let’s say for a couple of years in the future. To compare benefits and risks we can use different methods, but I prefer utility calculations: it can be money calculations, so we assign a money equivalent to everything. Or we can assign some points to each possible benefit and risk, then use multipliers to calculate the final value in abstract points.

Summing up, each option has some risks and benefits before the division point and after that, we should calculate them for both periods and for both options, then look at the final table. Before or after that you can look for alternative solutions: each option can have several variations or sub-options. These alternative should be added to the table and compared among others.

You can also draw a tree of goals to better understand why you need a job, money, and learning something new. It may help to find more alternatives and reevaluate your goals. After that you may need to return to the table and calculate new options with new benefits and risks.

More theories and guidelines can be found here: Thinking and deciding, J Baron - 2000