Here's something strategists know that not everyone else does: you can have literally anything you want, at work, home or in your life. Nothing is off limits.
Odds are the things you most want to do, have, or be have already been done by someone - which means it's possible for you too.
If you want to be a strategist, you'll need to think like one. The good news is, it's far less about what you know... and more about how you look at things.
The formula is pretty simple. When you are clear about what you really want (and why it matters), flexible in the path you'll take to get there (it almost certainly won't be the one you think it will) and ready to commit to taking small, consistent action, there's nothing you can't do.
Here's three steps to get you there:
Step One: Know what you want - and why
This is the hardest part of the process. You have to really, truly know what you want in order to be able to get it. This part is harder than it looks, because it's a red herring. It's not what you want that matters, but why you want it.
Want a beautiful home? Cool. You can't stop there though.
Why do you want that? Is it because you want status? Is it because you love relaxing alone? Is it because you want to give your family a good life? Is it because you want safety and comfort?
If you don't ask these questions and really interrogate your answers, a home may not give you the things you really crave.
Your home is a potential how to achieve deeper desires.
When you're clear on what those desires are, you can make choices that point toward those - which might be about your home, but might equally end up being about your relationships, your career, or your emotional health.
Whatever you do, don't spend your time designing for what you don't want. That's a surefire way to cut your dreams off at the knees and put your focus in the wrong place.
Step Two: Stop asking if
Strategists don't ask if they can have what they want. They don't wonder if they could have a more profitable business, a stronger workplace culture, a happier marriage, or a healthier lifestyle. They take that as a given.
If questions lead us to come up with all the barriers to our dreams. They're a fast track to mediocrity and compromise, and they're usually a waste of time. Of course you can have those things. People achieve those things all the time, and you're just as brilliant and deserving as anyone else.
Think of all the things you've achieved that you're proud of. The tiny wins and big victories that you pulled off against the odds. You know damn well that when you put your mind to it, care enough and work hard, you can make great things happen. Stop wasting time with if and start working out how.
Step 3: Take action, stay open
Once you know what you really want, and you've dispensed of the 'if' voice, take your first action. Don't mess around making a master plan or going down an internet rabbit hole, because you'll be procrastinating your inevitable wrongness. You're a strategist, not a planner.
Taking the first tiny step toward what you want might mean you...
Write the first page of that book.
Call that person.
Sign up for that course.
Pitch your idea.
Go for a 1km run.
Then tomorrow, take the next tiny step. The next day, do it again. Reallocate 30 minutes a day from the internet or social media into taking these steps, and keep doing it even when you feel like you suck and you aren't getting anywhere. There is very little that persistence and flexibility cannot give you.
The secret is astonishingly simple: As long as you're ready to get knocked back, feel dumb, stuff it up and keep learning, you'll be unstoppable.
Once you get the ball rolling, the world around you shifts. Your inner Google starts filtering new information and the tiny steps you take introduce you to people, ideas and options that you never could have known about beforehand.
The days are passing anyway, you may as well do things you care about with them.
Right, gotta go, I've got some astonishingly amateur fiction writing to persevere with.
A
Alicia McKay
