How Do You Manage Long Term Thinking?

It takes a special kind of skill set to be able to project someone forward in a year, or two year, years, three years, et cetera. How do you manage having such a long term vision, and one developing the now, the present? We want our athletes to be developed as human beings, as well as just people at deliveraly performances,. I think that's often one that gets forgotten quite a lot of the time, you know. But i think back on my own mediocre sporting career, there are a few things that i won, but largely, the memories i enjoy reflecting on at the experiences i had - they generalate great stories.