When making a decision, you must distinguish if it is short-term or long-term. Make sure to have a long-term mindset, when you are making a long-term decision. Long-term thinking is about the distant future. Many successful people are better at thinking and thus planning, what they want their future to look like.

Short term mindset is about the present or immediate future. This mindset should be applicable to short-term decisions only. It should not be an interchange with the long-term decision. There are consequences for your decisions so you need to have the right mindset for each decision making. 

Thinking long term gives you the “why”. It is like your mission statement. What is your mission in life? With your  ‘why’ or your mission, you can now work on the ‘what’ and ‘how’. What would be the actions that you need to take and how to do it?

Once you have decided on your long-term goals you have to adopt the long-term mindset as well. In this way, everything is aligned and you will not suffer the consequence of a bad decision.