A Strategy Is A Decision-making Framework.
The embodiment of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Are you getting the results you want? What is your decision making framework? What is the basis of your decision-making framework? Is it your conscience, your ego, someone else’s ego, your self-doubt, someone else’s self-doubt?
You have a decision making framework, whether you’ve thought about it or not. You’re making decisions about the deployment of your time and attention. Do you want those decisions to be made by a framework that you’ve never given any thought to? What kind of results will a thoughtless, default framework deliver? Are those the results you want?
Creating a decision making framework is a process that begins with many questions.
Who are you, and what do you want to do about it?
What is the quest you would happily devote your time and attention to each day?
This is where Modern Culture goes wrong, because it says that this question is irrelevant. You will devote your time and attention to the quest for short-term profit growth, and that’s the end of the conversation.
Your life consists of a series of days, and your days consist of a series of decisions, decisions about how you will devote your time and attention. So, how do you want to devote your time and attention?
Would you like to master your craft? Would you like to show up each day with faith in yourself, audacity in the face of uncertainty, and integrity in the face of temptation and distraction?
Since flow is the optimal state of human consciousness that delivers peak performance and wellbeing, would you like to devote your time and attention to the quest for flow? Is there something more meaningful and fulfilling that requires your time and attention?
Do you want to live a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to the flourishing of your community? Would you like to do that by devoting your days to mastering your craft and pursuing flow?
Do you want to pursue the Adventure of Your Life? Do you want to look for the Adventure of Your Life in the quest to transform all of your talent into skill and peak performance?
Do you want the Adventure of Your Life to be the basis of your decision making framework? Is there something more meaningful that you would rather use as the basis for your decision making framework?
Is there something more meaningful that you would rather do instead?
Most people live lives of quiet desperation because they fear unsuccessful attempts, frustration, and embarrassment. They forget that an adventure can only be called “an adventure” if the outcome is uncertain. What is your strategy for confronting and overcoming uncertainty?
Would you like to master the skill that is audacity? Would you like to begin by devoting your time and attention to the quest that is worth the struggle and the sacrifice? Which quest is that?
Now build a schedule that sets your conscience up for success by making the decisions about your time and attention in advance, because you don’t want your decisions made by shifts in your emotional state.
What is the basis of your current decision making framework? What is the momentum that your life has been running on? Are your decisions being made by Milton Friedman’s quest to increase shareholder value? Is that what you want?
The answers to these questions allow you to specify your authentic, nonnegotiable priorities. Do you want to find out what happens when you use those priorities as the basis for your decision-making framework? My bet is: that change will allow you to take ownership of your decisions, your days, and your destiny. Asking and answering those questions will cause some discomfort. No one ever died from discomfort. In fact, enduring discomfort is how you build antifragility.
The embodiment of futility is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. What results do you expect? What results have you been getting? What decisions do you need to make to get the results you expect? What actions do you need to take to get the results you expect?