4 Simple Steps to Master Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking is boring if you don't know how to practice it. However, remaining helpless in the same place leads to dissatisfaction, while moving forward arouses a beautiful feeling.

In this article, you will learn that strategic thinking is not boring after you master it. First, you will learn how to improve how your brain works so that it helps you instead of holding you back. Then, you will learn how to think strategically to achieve your goals.

Think for a moment about how improving your strategic thinking skills will help you in your life. You need to know the problems you want to solve and set your goals. By improving your brain's function, you can solve these problems and achieve your goals more efficiently.

Strategic thinking is a mental process that an individual applies to prepare themselves to efficiently achieve a goal in a specific context.

For example, you might mentally think about how to read this article to the end without losing focus. This is an example of strategic thinking. You are thinking about things you can do to achieve your goal of finishing this article efficiently.

4 Simple Steps to Master Strategic Thinking:

Here is an overview of the four simple steps to master strategic thinking:

1. Practicing meditation to get a clear idea.
2. Using cognitive enhancers to sharpen your mind.
3. Understanding the problem you want to solve or the goal you want to achieve.
4. Finding the most efficient methods to solve your problem.

The first and second steps are about improving your brain function to get you in a state of mind that is conducive to strategic thinking. The last two steps explain how to apply this mental superpower.

1. Practicing meditation to get a clear idea:

To think strategically, you need a clear idea of ​​the problem you are trying to solve and the methods available to you to solve it.

Meditation is an excellent way to remove unwanted things from your mind. Getting into the habit of meditating might improve your strategic thinking skills in the long term, but meditation will actually give you the most significant benefits of thinking strategically in the short term.

Specifically, mindfulness meditation, which involves simply resting the mind and paying close attention to each thought without focusing on any one topic, tends to help me think more strategically rather than intrinsically.

By monitoring your thoughts consciously, you will become more aware of your assumptions and preconceptions regarding the nature of the problem and the solutions you have thought of so far.

2. Using cognitive enhancers to sharpen your mind:

Cognitive enhancers_supplements that, if used appropriately, enhance cognitive performance_might help you think better They are also often called "nootropics" or "smart drugs."

Many people have misconceptions about these things; either they believe they are too effective and should be banned to prevent people from cheating, or they believe they are not effective at all. Both beliefs are often wrong.

Naturally, some nootropics might have cognition-enhancing effects, but they're only very good if your performance is already poor. Think of caffeine, for example; it doesn't raise your IQ by 40 points, but it helps you think, especially if you consume it moderately.

To use nootropics to think strategically, it is important to think strategically about how you will use them first. You must identify the mental tools you want to improve: Memory, concentration, mood, energy, or stress levels.

I work at Nootralize, a company that helps people understand the science of nootropics. In our review of more than 500 placebo-controlled studies that examined the effects of more than 200 nootropics in healthy humans, we found that most nootropics_which people use and claim to enhance their mental performance, need more research. This does not necessarily mean these substances are ineffective, but the scientific data necessary to understand them is not yet available.

In general, the top five nootropics supported by science are Omega 3, Walnuts, Bacopa Monnieri, Caffeine, and Sage. However, it is important to know why you want to use a nootropic. Caffeine will not help you reduce stress levels at all, for example, but Bacopa Monnieri might.

Some nootropics, such as cocoa and lemon balm, might even help you meditate. Meditation and nootropics are just two of many scientifically-backed ways to improve your brain function, which in turn might help you think more strategically.

3. Understanding the problem you want to solve:

Strategy is not a purpose in itself; it is a means to another purpose. Defining the problem directly motivates you to think strategically. After defining the problem you want to solve, you must understand everything related to it.

Ask yourself:

• Why do you want to solve this problem?
• When do you want to solve this problem?
• Where and in what context do you want to solve this problem?

For example, you can answer these questions by saying: “I am trying to lose 10 kg in 2021 because I think it will increase my daily energy levels.” This statement shows that you want to increase your energy levels and that you want to solve the problem of how to lose 10 kg. It is also clear that you want to achieve this before the end of 2021 and that you and not someone else want to lose weight.

Clarifying the context of the problem will enable you to compare the efficiency of the methods available to solve your problem.

4. Finding the most efficient methods to solve your problem:

To find the best solution to your problem, you must understand the reasons behind it; that is, you should look for the factors that play a role in the problem at hand and know the variables that might help you solve your problem if you can control them.

You must also look for the resources you need to control these variables. These resources might be people, money, time, energy, food, information, etc. Depending on your resources, you have to find a way to solve your problem quickly. You need to compare your options to define the fastest and most efficient way.

Assume that you are trying to learn chemistry, and you want to learn the chemical formula of water in a short period. You now understand what you want to do, when, and in what context. It is now time to find an effective way to learn the chemical formula of water.

Your available resources are a glass of water, your phone with internet access, and your biologist's mother, who is sitting next to you, ready to help.

How do you start learning the chemical formula of water? Most people probably don't even try to do anything with water to understand its chemical formula, but why?

You cannot solve your problem with just water; it does not have all the information you need. To find the chemical formula of water with the aid of a glass of water, you will require advanced equipment, knowledge, and time.

Would you ask Google or your mother?

Comparing two options when there is no one more likely to help you solve your problem might help you make a simple list of advantages and disadvantages.

Your mother will likely answer your question accurately in a very short period of time. Google would probably answer more accurately, but it would probably take longer to unlock your phone, open your browser, type "What is the chemical formula for water?" press the search button, choose a good source, and finally read the answer.

The list of advantages and disadvantages can be illustrated in this table:

It becomes clear that knowing the context of your problem is crucial when comparing options for solving it practically. If you want to understand the chemical formula of water because you will be taking a test in school next week, you might accept a quick and fairly accurate answer from your mother.

If you were to address the nation as president of the United States, you would probably want to invest more time to get an accurate and certain answer.

This is an example of why you need to understand the context of your problem fully before considering ways to solve it. Strategic thinking allows you to understand the context of the problem.

Advantages/disadvantages, revenues/costs, rewards/risks, benefits/side effects; All of these terms describe the positive and negative aspects of solutions or tools that can be used to solve problems.

In some circumstances, the problem is so small that it will take more time to prepare a list of advantages and disadvantages on paper or define clearly why you want to solve it. Here, relying on your intelligence and clarity of mind is useful.

When Should You Not Think Strategically?

In many everyday situations where you need to solve small problems, you can reduce the time it takes to solve a problem to the time it takes to weigh its advantages and disadvantages.

It's likely that you're already doing this somewhat consciously. However, acknowledging that you're problem-solving can help you step back, maybe for ten seconds, in meditation. Using nootropics, you can view the complete list of advantages and disadvantages of potential solutions to the current issue.

Strategic thinking takes time, but people who are good at strategic thinking know when strategic thinking is overkill.

You don't need to write an advantages/disadvantages list for which pair of socks you will use tomorrow morning or even consider the advantages/disadvantages of the alternatives you have. Sometimes, you'll get the best results by taking action quickly.

I want you to consider scenarios you wish to consider carefully in the future from a strategic perspective now. I find that my desire to think strategically increases with the importance of the problem to be solved and the necessity of using the required resources to solve it effectively.

If I have a test next week and I need to know the chemical formula of water, I will not list the advantages and disadvantages because, given the urgency of the situation, this will take a lot of time; instead, I will just act.

However, because nootropics alter your biological characteristics, which shape your experience, I would research the possible risks and advantages of using them extensively online and in scholarly publications if I were interested in using one. I could spend more time and energy thinking strategically because I value my experience highly.

In Conclusion:

To master strategic thinking, you need to know when to think strategically and when to act according to instinct. To determine this, understand the type of problem you are facing. When you understand your problem deeply, it is time to understand the available solutions and find the best solution that suits your situation.

To accomplish these things flawlessly and efficiently, you will benefit from meditation and cognitive enhancers that will sharpen your mind to the point where strategic thinking becomes easy and fun.