Strategic Aim
The Art of Generals
This is the third in a long series of posts focused on the idea that Life is War.
In war, strategy ties national objectives to battlefield action.
In the War of Life, strategy ties your values to your time.
Most people don’t know what they are fighting for. That’s why it is easier to outsource leadership. To let someone else Walk Point for you.
Most people wake up, check their phone, start putting out fires, and call it being productive. That’s not strategy. That’s reaction. That’s letting the world assign your missions.
“Strategy is both a product and a process.” (MCDP 1-2)
The product is a clear strategic aim.
The process is repeatedly asking: What am I fighting for?
Because until you know what you’re fighting for, you won’t know: when you’ve won, what battles to avoid, what sacrifices are worth it, and why you keep quitting when it gets hard.
Your Strategic Aim:
Strategy is where you choose your theater of war.
Your strategic aim should reach as far into the horizon as you can see. It must be tightly focused but must also incorporate all the things worth fighting for.
These are your Lines of Effort (LOEs).
Mine are: Mind, Body, Spirit, Purpose, Relationships, & Responsibilities.
Yours may be different (much more in LOEs in another post).
My strategy answers the question, What does victory look like in each line of effort in 3–5 years?
Most people can’t answer that without getting vague. That’s a problem because vague aims produce vague outcomes
Strategic Clarity: Azimuth Before Movement
If your aim isn’t clear, you’re patrolling without an azimuth. You’ll move. You’ll fight. You’ll win some fights and lose some. But you won’t take and hold ground.
Strategic Clarity answers:
What does “winning” actually look like?
What am I willing to fight for?
Who am I becoming?
If you can’t answer those questions, someone else will answer them for you.
Strategic Discipline
Being good at strategy requires you to say no, constantly.
Strategy is choosing.
Strategy is prioritizing.
Strategy is accepting that if you fight everywhere, you’ll win nowhere.
It is asking of every new opportunity, “Does this keep me on azimuth?”
Strategy is realizing that you have finite time, finite energy, and finite chances to win. Don’t waste them.
Strategic Planning Task:
Write your strategic aim in one paragraph. It should address your desired end state for each Line of Effort
Then ask yourself:
Do I have Operational Objectives to support this?
Because life is war, and if you don’t pick your objective, someone else will pick it for you.
And they won’t pick one that helps you get better at getting better.
Until next week,
Keep Walking Point,
John
If you've read my book, Tough Rugged Bastards, thank you for helping make it a bestseller. I would appreciate it if you would leave an honest review on Amazon. Thanks!
A lot of strategy articles make the topic feel way more complicated than it needs to be. As you show, it can be simple as choosing as what you will will do with the "finite time, finite energy, and finite chances to win."