Strategic Thinking Is A Way To Give Direction To Your Life

Strategic thinking is a concept that has made its name in the field of marketing. But you can’t just use it for business or work. Because you can also apply it perfectly in other areas. In fact, it’s a useful approach that you can use in almost any area.

Strategic thinking is defined as tackling something today from the perspective of the future. In other words, it is an approach aimed at anticipating the long-term effects of our actions. It is a creative long-term vision geared to achieving specific objectives.

As the name suggests, strategic thinking includes strategy. It is a coordinated action aimed at a specific plan or goal. This way of thinking was first used in war situations. Then it was applied in the business world. But as we said at the beginning, you can use it for any purpose.

The Characteristics of Strategic Thinking

The first thing to say about strategic thinking is that you can’t learn it by reading a manual. On the contrary, people compare it to walking, swimming or cycling. So it is not theoretical. You learn it in practice.

When you meet the following characteristics, you think in a strategic way:

• You know where you want to go. There must therefore be a clearly defined objective or direction. Because if there isn’t, then any strategy is meaningless.

• You know where you are. In other words, that means you have the ability to determine what the current situation is and how far along the goal is.
• You know how to determine the path to follow. This is really the core of the strategy. It has to do with the elaboration of the way in which we want to achieve our goals.
• You know how to evaluate yourself and how to correct things. Strategic thinking requires the flexibility to continuously oversee what has already been done and to be able to adjust things if necessary.

To think strategically you need a dose of realism, the ability to think and the ability to see the overview. Of course, these skills don’t appear out of nowhere. You have to develop them through practice.

Three keys to strategic thinking

In the world of strategic thinking, different skills are important. However, three skills are absolutely crucial. That’s because they allow you to build the core aspect of this way of thinking: strategy. These are these essential skills:

• The ability to discard predictive models. You cannot create a plan of action and then stubbornly cling to it. Because you have to constantly renew a strategy. You must therefore have an open mind to tackle the situations that arise, to adjust and to deal with uncertainty.
• The ability to ask questions. In strategic thinking, questions are much more important than answers. Because if you can describe the question, you are already halfway towards your goal.
• The ability to recognize the key points. We must learn to separate what is clearly defined from what is arbitrary. Knowing the crucial factors is absolutely fundamental. This makes it possible to monitor more closely and adjust if necessary.

Strategic thinking is not the same as “strategic planning.” The first is an intellectual ability that you direct. But the planning is the application of that skill in any given situation.

Exercises to develop strategic thinking

There are many ways to develop strategic thinking. For example, you can do it by playing chess or by formulating and testing new hypotheses. But for starters, it’s a good idea to do some simple exercises. These exercises have been proven to be effective in helping the mind develop discipline and learn to design strategies.

Here are three simple exercises that we highly recommend:

• Do something completely different. The idea here is that you decide to do an activity that you have never done before. It could be something as simple as taking a different route to get to work. As you do this, try to observe everything in detail. Afterwards you describe the experience on paper. So you write down what you have discovered.
• Role play. In this exercise, you think of someone you really admire. The mechanisms are similar to those of role playing. You think about that person and try to imagine how he thinks. Throughout the day you act as if you are that person. At the end of the day, describe what you have discovered.

In conclusion, we summarize. Strategic thinking is a skill that helps you achieve your goals.  So you can apply it to almost anything. Because it helps you to think in a more orderly way. But it mainly helps you to think long term and what you want to achieve.