You sound mixed up regarding what is "long term investing," and you may well not have any kind of specific timeline for when to get out exactly, even though you might have some ideas in regards to when you might start to need the money, whether that is 4-10 years or further into the future.
Sure having some specific goals into the longer term, such as 5 years or wanting to reach a certain amount, could have some relationships to long term or maybe overlap with the idea of long term or difficult to achieve goals that may or may not be reached... so some of the ways that you are framing long term could also fit within the category of long term thinking about investing.. . but you do not have to have any of those kinds of specifics...
You could have long term plans and intentions to stay with your investment 4-10 years or longer, while also recognizing that you have discretion to change your mind at any time or that you might want to make sure that you always have some ways of exiting the investment, even if you are not planning to exit, but you want to make sure that you can exit if you feel that you need to (or change your mind and want to).
Of course, you are less likely to be successful in your investment if you end up pulling out early.. so there is a lot of power in making sure that you can stay in.. but surely you also have complete autonomy over your own life and your investments, even if you end up screwing it up.. .. and there even could be some rare scenarios that getting out ended up being the right thing to do.
So then what is our approach as long term investors if we don't have any time frame in our mind for how long we would be holding or investing in bitcoin before we sell or start withdrawing, if we don't necessarily need to have a specific exit time, then what should we consider as our aim for holding, cause I do know that most persons approach investing in bitcoin with a profit making mindset and for a while in this thread I've been on the fact that long term holders(with our old definition as persons accumulate Bitcoin for a longer time frame) do have bigger benefits than short term holders for the many reasons we have also established.
If time frame or having a specific time I would stay as an investor or holder isn't what determines a long term holder what does?
I have seen JJG mention 4-10years or longer than that in few of his comments, I think that is a long term investment even in conventional assets. Although some of us are HODLing way beyond that because Bitcoin is part of what I will pass on to the next generation. While the time range os just a suggestion, it is up to you to decide how long to HODL before you consider beginning to get some of the funds out probably when you are retired from active service because it is expected that during your accumulation phase you are still actively engaged in activities that earn you the money to invest in Bitcoin, use for your needs and keep some for emergencies.