Coaching practices for Long Term Values Thinking

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Long Term Values Thinking, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I only ever stick with things that show me a quick win, and I lose heart fast when there’s no feedback
• I keep abandoning things the moment it’s clear I won’t personally see them pay off, and I want to be able to pour myself into something that matters even knowing I’ll be long gone before it’s finished.
• I can’t tell which of my values are truly mine and which I just absorbed from my parents or my culture
• We’ve got nice-sounding values up on the wall and the website, but they do nothing in the room when a real hiring or judgment call is on the table
• I keep making the call that looks good this quarter and quietly costs the team a year out, and I want to start deciding like someone holding all this in trust for the long run rather than spending it to hit the number in front of me.

Practices that may help

1. Cultivate an "acorn brain": plant what you will not harvest
   Deliberately invest time and energy in efforts that will only pay off decades from now.
   The Good Ancestor: Long-Path Thinking for a Meaningful Life
2. Cathedral thinking
   Commit to projects whose benefits you will not live to see, as medieval builders committed to cathedrals.
   The Good Ancestor: Long-Path Thinking for a Meaningful Life
3. The Good Ancestor: Long-Path Thinking for a Meaningful Life
   Roman Krznaric argues that most modern thinking is acutely short-term, and that cultivating "long-path thinking" — making choices with deep consideration for people not yet born — is both a path to personal meaning and a basis for wiser decisions. The practices draw on well-documented psychology of time perspective and legacy motivation, though the framework itself is relatively new.
4. Use the eulogy / future-self lens
   Imagine how you’d want to be remembered to reveal the values you’d defend most.
   Values Clarification, Made Practical
5. Make core values operational, not decorative
   Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
   The Rockefeller Habits: Scaling Up with Rhythm and Focus
6. Practice foresight and stewardship
   Hold the team’s resources and future in trust — decide for the long game, not just this quarter.
   Servant Leadership, Made Practical
7. Use the 10-year view to check values alignment
   Ask: is the 10-year version of this choice consistent with what I actually care about?
   The 10-10-10 Rule
8. Excavate your actual values from your history
   Use past choices and sacrifices — not aspirations — to find what you actually value.
   Life Review and Reminiscence Therapy
9. Review the bullseye weekly to track real movement
   Re-mark each domain every week and compare — small outward or inward shifts are your feedback loop.
   Values Bullseye, Made Practical
10. Check the consequence across time horizons
    A choice can be good at one day, bad at one year — name the result at each horizon.
    Second-Order Thinking: And Then What?

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