What’s Your Strategy Stopping You from Doing?

A quick thought on why it matters.

Darren Matthews

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

What’s your strategy?

Come on, could you describe it to me in two sentences or less? Okay, let’s go a step further, do your actions reflect your strategy? Mmm…I ponder this myself.

Michael Porter says it right: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

In the battle to win the day, we — I mean I — often lose sight of what our strategy is and what we should be doing. I get drawn into the weeds when planting trees is more productive — and more valuable in the future.

I ask myself what is going on here?

Questions like this are invitations to inspect what you’re doing and why. Turning the question on yourself opens the door to more questions as you assess the alignment of activity and strategy. The differences can be vast which brings us back to the strategy.

A strategy ends with a goal, but in reality, it also starts with one.

Warren Buffett says you should list twenty-five goals, list them in priority order and then only focus on the top 5. He strongly declared the remaining twenty should become a do not do list.

A goal needs a strategy.

Without a plan to achieve a long-term goal, a goal becomes a dream. It’s where most of us fail. We have goals (dreams), but no plan on how we will achieve them.

The priority should be to have a plan. A long-term goal with a simple description of how you’ll get there. Then, and this I’m beginning to see as the more important aspect, you need to know what you should be doing. A do not do list.

So, what’s your strategy stopping you from doing?

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Darren Matthews

I’m utterly curious about decision-making | Sharing lessons learned from the thousands of decisions I’ve studied and made | Founder https://www.resolve.blog