How To Strategically Think About Your Future
Yes! You can turn overthinking into strategic thinking. Rolling around possibilities and questions that aren’t aligned with moving forward on your priority objectives is a disastrous road to travel on. There’s a hopeful ending to the stress that’s surrounded our past personal + professional lives. But remember, the dominant signpost is saying “The agile life is here to stay! “ So what’s your strategy?
Grab these quick keys to create a better understanding of how to frame strategic action + boost your professional success.
6 Keys To Kickstart Strategic Thinking:
Incorporate consistent time into your calendar to observe the trends + big-picture solutions for transformation in your workplace + business. For example, consumer-based gallop polls, industry surveys, global reports + marketing approaches are changing at light-speed. Comfort will come when you are readily familiar with how the social + industry behaviors, habits, patterns are affecting your strategic plans. Remember to take a moment + ensure what you’re doing today rightly aligns with your values. Standards of excellence don’t come + go. Make sure what you’re doing demonstrates “You’re here to stay!”
Reflect on any crisis or change in your life + work with courage. You have to develop confidence in having tough conversations or asking tough questions when a crisis or change is happening. Don’t wait until it’s already happened. Rolling up your sleeves, being proactive will give you a more solid footing to shift your actions to what’s genuinely valuable + essential for staying power.
Don’t fear the bigger goals + faster ways to accomplish them. Contribute to team + colleague conversations, + wherever your online communities are. Get up-to-date data + have relevant dialogue weekly. You ensure success by removing doubt, failing fast + contributing to idea generation without fear of sharing your talented skills. Your projects benefit when you intentionally dive in + design more effective brainstorming circles; an efficient tech atmosphere; + initiate team-building energizers for an upsurge in workplace productivity.
Do you know what your core values are? Have they changed? I keep a list of my values close by to make sure my new project is well integrated with my personal + professional objectives? My strategic tactics depend on knowing who I am + what my life stands for. What is your core message for life + work? If there’s conflict in what you believe + what you’re doing, stop + take time to have the self-talk. Getting this clarity will help you improve your actions in the face of present ambiguous times.
The ultimate goal of strategic thinking is to get you to the big-picture scope. As professionals, we now have to have both big-picture and detail thinking skills – AND we have to know how to balance these needs. But let’s talk about the big-picture because thinking up is a major key to being strategic. In fact, if you don’t allow your team to participate in this process, they may begin to feel you’re holding back crucial growth opportunities. People really don’t want to be reactionaries. It makes them feel unnecessarily vulnerable + lessens confidence. So allow yourself + your team crucial time to review trends, spend daily time in thoughtfulness, + identify a list of strategic qualifiers for doing your best work. You might be surprised how this process can uncover redundancy, gaps in operational performance, even financial missteps. Big-Picture thinking can help you focus your human resources on what really matters in your workplace.
Brilliance can be shared. Maybe it’s time for you to strategically let the ownership be shared so that a shared understanding is developed. Engaging a confidant if you’re an entrepreneur, or team member, or colleague can help refine your business ideas. This is the real work of the future that will kickstart the type of strategic thinking that boosts professional success. Strategic insights will exponentially activate your company’s strategies + align team commitment.
Use these keys to build [or rebuild] your strategic thinking skills. These refresher keys will ensure you’re prioritizing + properly sequencing your thoughts. You will transform your mindset by consistently challenging personal + professional assumptions. It's okay to regularly weigh the status quo because you optimistically level up the conversation with yourself + those around you. It’s okay if you have to say, “An issue came up just when I thought I had it all figured out..” No worries. Even though uncertainty is here to stay, your confident embrace + commitment to take time out to think will make you strategically prepared for any pivot!
Want more advice on how to think strategically in this career season? Get FREE career advice in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter Sticky Note Success!
© EJ Encalarde. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission, from this blog’s author and/or owner, is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to EJ Encalarde, LLC, with proper and specific direction to the original content at ejencalarde.com