You’re going to be challenged in life. You’ll be challenged by both internal and external forces, some of which you’ll have influence over, and some you won’t. Sometimes, it’ll seem like your own mind is working against you.​

In this fast-paced world, speed and efficiency mean everything. From getting leads, to making sales, and from study methods to test-taking, being more efficient is always better. And that’s what the workforce wants. But in our haste to be better and faster, we can miss crucial steps along the way that we may not feel the repercussions of until it’s too late.

Don’t mistake taking a shortcut for efficiency.

​There’s the easy, and there’s the long way. But in reality, the long way often turns out to be the easy way.

Speed. Efficiency. Effectiveness. They’re all descriptors of doing something faster. For millennia, man has sought to do more with less. If a hunter-gatherer improved efficiency, he could spend less energy attaining more food, allowing for more energy reserves in the case they were needed. If a soldier is quicker on the battlefield, he could further accomplish the mission at hand, and increase his survivability. But these skills aren’t developed overnight. In fact, they often require hundreds, or even thousands of hours of hard work and dedication.

Remember:

There’s a difference between closing the gap between two time points and simply taking a shortcut.​

Imagine starting a business, but in your haste to make a profit, you skipped some crucial legal steps, didn’t create a system for inventory, and refused to nurture your customer base on a good, emotional level.

12 months from now, you’re dealing with branding conflicts, unaccounted for sales and inventory, and trying to build missed relationships with your target audience because you refused to do so a long time ago. Now, you’re going to spend months trying to get back on top, whereas, if you took the time in the beginning, you’d be ahead of the game by now.

These days, we have tools and technology today that allow us to create without thinking. They can be good, but they can also be detrimental. Use them as force-multipliers, not as tools to begin scaling something that’s going to become unsustainable when it requires more forward thinking and a strong human element.

Again, you’re going to be challenged with choices. Take heed with the ones you have influence over, and make the decision that will best benefit you in the long run. And I will caution you of taking the shortcut, because although it may seem faster, it can oftentimes prove lengthier than doing things the right way in the first place.

This week, choose something you’re passionate about, take a step back, and decide how it would benefit you to slow down in order to yield the best outcome.