How Being Shortsighted is Impacting Your Long Game? Small Pause for Big Gains

In the rush of daily demands, many of us sacrifice tomorrow's potential for today's urgency. Read that again! Tomorrow's potential for today's urgency.

There is no doubt that time goes fast. Ask me that question at 21, and I would have scoffed. Now approaching 55, the reality of that question sinks in.

After working as a leader in several organizations and coaching many more leaders across industries, I've witnessed a common pattern: the most transformative breakthroughs happen when we pause long enough to see beyond our immediate horizon.

The Shortsighted Trap

Shortsightedness isn't just about vision—it's about perspective. When we're caught in the whirlwind of quarterly targets, inbox zero, and back-to-back meetings, we naturally narrow our focus. This survival mechanism serves us in crisis, but becomes our limitation in creating a lasting impact of effectiveness.

I remember working with a brilliant leader who prided themself on efficiency. They could solve any problem faster than their peers. Yet six months into our coaching, they realized that "solutions" were merely band-aids—quick fixes that required constant renewal rather than sustainable transformation.

"I've been so busy putting out fires," they told me during a pivotal session, "that I never questioned why they keep starting in the first place."

This insight marked a turning point. By integrating the Small Pause approach, they learned to expand their awareness beyond the immediate and into the realm of lasting, transformative possibility.

5 Actionable Ways to Overcome Shortsightedness

1. Practice the Three-Breath Reset

Before responding to challenges, take three intentional breaths. This practice isn't just mindfulness—it's creating a deliberate space between stimulus and response where new possibilities emerge.

Try this: When feeling pressured to make a quick decision, place your hand on your heart, take three slow breaths, and ask yourself: "What assumption am I making, that I'm not aware I'm making, that gives me what I see?" This powerful question from Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander's book "The Art of Possibility" opens doors to perspectives that weren't accessible in reactive mode.

2. Engage in Regular Future-Self Dialogues

Your future self holds insights that your present self needs. Schedule monthly conversations with the person you'll be five years from now.

I guide my clients to write letters from their future selves, describing what matters most looking back. These dialogues consistently reveal priorities that were invisible amid daily urgencies. One client realized his exhaustive networking efforts were disconnected from his deeper aspiration to create community-based solutions—a realization that completely reshaped his approach to relationship-building.

3. Reframe "Efficiency" as "Effectiveness"

Efficiency asks how quickly something can be done. Effectiveness asks whether it should be done at all.

In your next team meeting, introduce this distinction. When discussing initiatives, add the question: "If we succeed at this, will it matter three years from now?" This ontological shift—changing how your team relates to time and value—creates permission to prioritize differently.

4. Create Consequence Visualization Practices

We often remain shortsighted because we fail to vividly experience future consequences in the present moment.

Develop the practice of consequence visualization: Before making significant decisions, close your eyes and fully imagine living with the second and third-order effects of your choices. One leadership team I coached discovered that their planned restructuring, while offering immediate cost savings, would dismantle trust systems they'd spent years building—a realization that led them to design a more nuanced approach.

5. Establish Wisdom Councils

We need voices that aren't caught in our same daily pressures. Create a personal board of advisors who hold different time horizons than you do.

Include someone focused on heritage work spanning generations, an elder who brings a life-long perspective, and perhaps someone from an entirely different discipline. Meet quarterly to share your challenges and listen to what they see that you cannot. The diversity of temporal perspectives will illuminate blind spots in your thinking.

The Profound Shift: From Doing to Being

The Small Pause approach isn't about adding more to your already full plate—it's about shifting who you're being while engaged with what's already there.

When we pause, we create space to notice not just what we're doing, but how we're being while doing it. Are we being reactive or responsive? Fearful or curious? Closed or open to possibility?

This shift from shortsightedness to long-view thinking isn't achieved through more strategic planning sessions or better prioritization matrices.

It emerges from a fundamental shift in how we observe ourselves in relation to time, choice, and impact.

The leaders who create extraordinary results aren't necessarily working harder or smarter—they're accessing a quality of presence that allows them to see connections, consequences, and opportunities invisible to others.

Your capacity for transformative impact lives in these small pauses—moments of conscious choice that ripple forward through time, creating the future you truly seek to build.

What small pause will you take today that your future self will thank you for?

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Hey there! I'm Dave, a Leadership and Life Coach who lives inside the pause in beautiful Ladner, B.C. I'm a proud dad to two incredible kids and blessed to be stepdad to two more amazing souls who teach me daily about presence and possibility.

My journey from corporate burnout to coaching wasn't planned—it was necessary. In 2017, after hitting the wall as a Senior Manager in local government, I discovered that the small pauses between moments hold more power than the constant motion our culture celebrates. That discovery changed everything.

What makes my approach different? I don't just help you manage stress—I guide you to transform your relationship with time, presence, and possibility. The small pause isn't about doing less; it's about being more intentional in everything you do. My clients don't just survive their challenges; they discover entirely new ways of seeing their work, relationships, and purpose.

One client described our work together as "finally finding the off switch for my constant mental spinning." Another shared that "Dave helped me realize I wasn't actually living my life—I was just reacting to it. Now I'm creating it."

As an ICF Certified Coach with specialized training from the Newfield Network, a Certified HeartMath® Coach & Mentor, and a trained Equine Guided Learning Facilitator, I bring both heart and science to our work together. My trauma-sensitive approach ensures that every pause feels safe, supportive, and transformative.

Ready to discover what's possible inside your pause?

Let's connect for a 30-minute conversation where you'll experience firsthand what happens when you slow down enough to access your deepest wisdom. Visit www.smallpausecoach.com to book your session.

You'll also find me sharing my passion for creating small reminders to slow down and live a values-based and intentional life with my gear in the Small Pause Shop.

Remember: The most extraordinary transformations begin with the smallest pauses.

References

Zander, R. S., & Zander, B. (2000). The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Harvard Business School Press.