Strategic Thinking for Life
Strategic thinking isn’t just for boardrooms; it can transform your personal life too. By applying strategic principles, you can craft a life strategy that helps you live a great life, not just win at it. This involves making integrated choices that align with your personal goals and values, much like a company aligns its strategy to succeed in the market.
Seven Steps to Life Strategy
Creating a life strategy involves seven steps: defining a great life, understanding your purpose, envisioning your future, assessing your life portfolio, learning from best practices, making life choices, and ensuring sustained change. These steps mirror corporate strategy processes and help you align your actions with your personal vision and goals.
Redefining Success and Happiness
Success isn’t just about money, fame, or power. These can quickly lose their impact due to hedonic adaptation and social comparison. Instead, focus on positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement, and vitality—elements of the PERMA-V model from positive psychology. These aspects contribute to a fulfilling and balanced life.
“”What if I took strategic thinking and applied it to my own life?””
Life Portfolio Management
Just like businesses manage portfolios, you can manage your life by investing time, money, and energy in strategic life units. Identify how you currently spend your time across different areas like relationships, work, and hobbies. This helps you understand where to focus your efforts for maximum satisfaction and alignment with your life goals.
Assessing Your Life Units
Evaluate your life by dividing your time among 16 strategic life units. Rate each unit’s importance and your satisfaction with it. This assessment helps you identify areas needing more attention or change. Plot these on a matrix to visualize where you invest your time and how satisfied you are, guiding you to make informed adjustments.
Identifying Urgent Life Changes
In your life portfolio, the upper left quadrant reveals urgent areas needing attention—high importance but low satisfaction. For example, if relationships are lacking, reconnecting with old friends could be a quick win. Recognize these areas to prioritize changes that can significantly enhance your life satisfaction.
“”Life is about living a great life.””
Reducing Time Wasters
Social media can be a major time drain, often represented by large bubbles in your life matrix. Reducing time spent on platforms like Instagram or TikTok can free up hours for more fulfilling activities. Some people even choose to delete their accounts to focus on more meaningful pursuits.
Crafting the Right Portfolio
A well-aligned life portfolio supports your purpose and vision. Ideally, your important life areas should also be satisfying and time-consuming, appearing in the upper right quadrant of your matrix. This alignment ensures that your daily activities contribute positively to your overall life strategy.
Adapting to Uncertainty
Even in uncertain times, having a life strategy provides direction. As Seneca said, “If you do not know which port you are sailing to, no wind is favorable.” While it’s crucial to be open to opportunities, preparation is key. A strategic approach helps you be ready when opportunity knocks.
“”How do you define a great life?””
Preparation Meets Opportunity
A great life isn’t just about luck; it’s about preparation meeting opportunity. Strategizing your life equips you with the tools to seize opportunities as they arise. By understanding your goals and aligning your actions, you can turn potential opportunities into tangible successes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main steps involved in creating a personal life strategy?
The process involves seven key steps: defining what a great life means to you, identifying your life purpose and vision, assessing your life portfolio, learning from best practices, making strategic life choices, and ensuring sustained change. By following these steps, you can create a comprehensive life strategy that aligns with your values and goals.
How can I assess my current life satisfaction and areas for improvement?
You can evaluate your life satisfaction by plotting your time spent on various strategic life units against their importance and satisfaction levels in a 2-by-2 matrix. This will help you identify areas where you are investing time but feel unsatisfied, allowing you to focus on improving those aspects of your life.
What is the PERMA-V model and how can it help me in my life strategy?
The PERMA-V model, developed by Professor Seligman, includes Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement, and Vitality. By assessing your life through these six dimensions, you can gain insights into what contributes to your overall well-being and make informed choices to enhance your life strategy.
