Stephane Dadjo: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to my podcast, Live Your Best Life Every Day. My name is Stephane Dadjo, and today's topic is going to be about strategic thinking and strategic planning. Stay tuned and enjoy the ride.
Your life is made of your past as well as it is of your present and the unfolding of your future. Now, the ladder is not set in stone, meaning you have the capacity and the ability to alter its course. The question is how do you go about it? It is also said that no matter what we do, we cannot control what happens in our tomorrow.
Well, I'll tell you [00:01:00] this, that is only true to some extent. The fact is unless it's about death or natural disasters. We have effective control over everything else that happens to us. Whether we are conscious about it or not, that is where strategic thinking and planning come into play. Do you ever feel as though you are just existing, not even living your own life?
Do you ever feel like a fraud? Do you ever happen to feel like an imposter in your own life story or you are the sum of your choices and decisions? That is a control that you have, but the lack of strategic thinking and planning eventually led you to basically nothing or nowhere. And that right there is the tragedy.[00:02:00]
What were your plans growing up, if I may ask, what did you dream of becoming? How did you see yourself at the age you are now? Did everything work out the way you wanted or are those plans and dreams buried in the clouds of surfed out? Deception and depression, where if you feel. As if nothing is happening in your life the way you envisioned it, you need to listen and start doing this.
First, you need to self-reflect. You have to go back to that place where things last worked out, and access the circumstances that led to things working out. Try to recreate that process in which you were and what were your motivations back. The second step is checking your state of mind. Be open and honest with yourself on how [00:03:00] you feel about being where you are currently and what led you down that alley.
Most of the time we tend to blame other people. We, tend to focus on external factors. Before this exercise, I'm gonna need you to focus on yourself and the role or path that you had to. In your own demise.
That leads us to the third point. This one right here is about making the life-changing decisions to turn things around and get the wheel rolling as data. To say this, quite often we do everything, but when it comes to the action taking part, we fail to show up, and that's something that we have to do something about.
That's something that we have to be better at when it comes to [00:04:00] showing up for our ourselves when it comes to taking action. Fit without actions is death. It diagnostic without action leads to nothing. Everything in life needs to be backed with actions, and there are a few ways you can go about it. My advice is to grab a piece of paper, have a pencil or your pen in hand, and ask three questions that you can actually follow that can guide you into achieving this particular exercise.
The first question is the how. How do you move from where you are now to where you need to be? How do you change your circumstances? Or T how do you go? Changing your circumstances. That is down to strategic planning and strategic thinking. So if you can [00:05:00] figure out the how-to, then you'll be able to apply what you need to apply, and that takes us to the fourth step.
Lay down a plan just like it's done in every successful. Draw your roadmap, write down everything that you want to achieve, and along each of those, write a big WHAT interrogation mark. Then next to the what I need you to write why, and then next to the next day, why I need you to, to write how, so you have three questions here.
You have the what the. And the how. Those three questions need to be answered. For each initiative or each step or each sentence that you manage to put there on your plan in terms of what you [00:06:00] want to achieve, the what is the goal, what you are aiming to achieve or accomplish. The why is the reason, the motivation, the level of importance, relevance, or.
You get the demand that through the why and of course the how. The how is of course the way you get it done, the very c your strategy. So try to come up with three answers for each of these questions. Then choose the immediate, most achievable task or strategy that you believe will have a substantial impact on your circumstances.
Those are your short-term strategies. Then the ones that will take you longer to implement, you know, or that can be, you know, develop over a longer period of time. Those are your long-term strategies. That's how you have to [00:07:00] lay them out. So on one side, you'll be able to establish a short-term strategies, and then you plan yourself accordingly.
And then also on the other hand, you have the long-term ones. At action at the Fifth Step and watch how things begin to change and evolve around you. Stick to your plan, stick to your strategy, and consciously improve your quality of life. Now, lemme tell you this, this is not an easy process. It's not something that just happens overnight.
No, it takes time, but you have to be committed to one. A better lifestyle. You have to be committed to wanting a better quality of life. You have to be committed to achieving your course and your dreams. That's what's going to keep you and get you going on these that are not, you know, on those days that are [00:08:00] not really bright.
Cause those days are, they're gonna be there. You're gonna have a road. Things ain't always gonna work out the way you feel or think that they should be working out. That that's when commitment comes in. That's when dedication comes, uh, that's when dedication comes in and that's when it's important and relevant to remember the reason why you started.
I tell this to everyone, and this applies to everything, whereas people go to the gym after three months, they complain how hard it is, and they think about giving up. I'm always telling them, remember why you started. The reason why you started didn't change. You started because of a certain discomfort.
Regardless of the nature of the discomfort. You started because of a certain discomfort, and that discomfort didn't change. So if you stop now, you going right back to that bit of discomfort. Lash is about [00:09:00] choices. It's about taking actions. Always remember when they're going as hard. Remind yourself why you started.
Remind yourself what you remind yourself, why you got on that journey in the first place. When you travel, you moved to a different country, to created different lifestyle for yourself and going as. Remind yourself why you left home. Remind yourself why you left your home country. Remind yourself why you left your parents' house to go abroad and look for a different or better lifestyle.
Remind yourself of that. Cause those reasons they didn't change your perspective on why you started may have changed, but the reason why you started didn't. Now, those are two different things that people often mix up.[00:10:00]
That's why it is important to have a certain level of strategic thinking and strategic planning. Getting the habit of writing things down, of having an plan,
having an. Things will not follow up exactly on the dots as per your plan, but it helps to keep an eye on your timeline. At least you know where you are going. Now, just cause you miss a turn doesn't mean that you won't end up reaching where you are going. No, you miss a turn. You can grab the next turn, but if you don't know where you are going, how are you gonna knowledge You miss a turn to begin with.
That's why you need your roadmap. That's why you need your plan laid out. You can't achieve anything with your strategic thinking. Thinking strategically [00:11:00] means taking into account the what, the why, and the how, and giving a certain relevance to certain things. You can't do everything at the same time. No, you have so many ideas.
That's great. When you. Go about executing everything at the same time. That's where strategic planning comes into place. Each things have to be done or achieved, willing. A certain timeline or timeframe that you, that you allocate to it. Give yourself deadlines. It's important. Be discipl. That's how you get to achieve anything whatsoever.
I'm not gonna go further into this, but one, one thing I wanted to keep in mind is that this exercise that we've been through in this episode, [00:12:00] you need to be able to conduct this at least every six months. Make it a routine, make it a lifestyle to review your priorities, to review your. Because it's one thing to have a strategic plan.
It's order to review that plan politically just to make sure that you are on track. Cause life is gonna happen. You gonna make plans and life is gonna happen. I can tell you that. So every now and then, just make sure, go back to your plan, review it Reassesses, just to make sure that you are still on track.
Because it might feel as if life's gonna bounce you off your track. Life's gonna bounce you off the wagon, but you have to make sure that even if you get bounced off the wagon, that you jump right back in afterwards and you keep going stay
and just all I have to see guys, keep [00:13:00] an eye on the gold. Again, strategic think. Strategic planning, the most important question that you have to ask yourself with anything that you want to achieve, what, why, and how. Those are your pointers. That's it for today guys. If you feel like you know anybody out there who needs to listen to this, feel free to 40 to the person.
Again, my name is si. You may find my book available on Amazon. Do. The name of the book is, live Your Best Life Every Day. And again, that is what this is about, living our best lives, how to do so through strategic thinking and strategic planning. Have a.[00:14:00]