If you’re seeking happiness or success, there is plenty of advice available. But a fascinating study demonstrates that your mindset matters—and there’s a specific type of thinking that will nurture your happiness and advance your achievement most successfully.
A strategic mindset is key.
And of course, it’s critical today. Life moves fast, people are stressed and you’re constantly having to avoid overwhelm, solve problems, manage stress and adapt. And research shows a strategic mindset may be just what you need to for joy and achievement.
How A Strategic Mindset Matters
A strategic mindset is distinguished from a growth mindset or grit. And it is also different than self-efficacy (believing you are capable) or self-control. Essentially, having a strategic mindset is about the mental process of stepping back and assessing how you might do things differently, better or more collaboratively.
Having a strategic mindset has huge payoffs. In particular, it results in greater happiness, better performance and higher likelihood of reaching your goals—in your profession, education, health or fitness—according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When you have a strategic mindset, you can think things through, figure things out and take the best course of action.
Creating A Strategic Mindset For Happiness
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According to the research, there are specific ways to cultivate a strategic mindset for happiness.
1. Step Back
Ironically, the best way to move forward is to start by stepping back. Often, when you encounter a problem, you’ll feel rushed with a high level of urgency to solve it. The customer is angry, the product fails or the delivery doesn’t arrive—but a big element of a strategic mindset is the ability to pause, step back and reflect—so you can gain clarity on how to move forward.
Continuing to act without pausing to consider whether your action is effective, can keep you on the wrong path. And especially if you’re under pressure or feeling a high degree of worry, you may find yourself rushing.
In the face of intensity, slow down to speed up—thinking things through and determining the best course forward.
2. Do It Differently
Another key to building your strategic thinking is to reflect on what you can do differently. Our human instinct is often to keep investing in the course we’ve chosen. This is called the sunk cost fallacy. We reason that if we’ve come this far and invested this much, it may not make sense to turn back.
It’s like the saying, “If you’re going through hell, you should keep going,” attributed to Winston Churchill. Sometimes, this is true, of course, but you should also pause and check yourself. Ask yourself:
- How are things going so far, and what progress have you made?
- What is working well, and what is getting in the way?
- How might you change course or go in an opposite direction?
- What have you not already tried?
- What are the alternatives to what you’re doing now?
- How might someone new to the situation approach it?
- What are some wildly creative ways you could solve the problem?
These kinds of questions can help you take stock and determine if there’s an alternate course that may serve you better.
3. Do It Better
Another tactic in strategic thinking is to reflect on what you can do better. Perhaps you’ve tried things, but you haven’t given it your all. Or you may have spread your effort across a number of tactics, and you would be more effective to focus on one or two areas where you can really excel.
A characteristic of happiness is feeling dedicated to a responsibility that matters to you. By putting a lot of effort into something and committing to a course of action, you’re more likely to succeed because you’re working hard, but you’re also likely to contribute to your happiness because of the correlation between commitment and joy.
4. Help Yourself Or Others
Another aspect of strategic thinking in the study, was considering how you can help yourself or others. Sometimes when you’re working hard on something you can lose sight of the methods you’re using and how they impact on your wellbeing or on the people around you.
In what ways might you or the team work more efficiently? Can you turn off distractions or improve your focus, or that of the team? Could you track your trials and errors—and your progress? Could you involve others or rely on teammates for their unique talents? How might you shift your actions so the process works better for you or colleagues?
All of these are collaboratively oriented concerns, and they are also ways to think more strategically.
5. Cultivate Variety
Finally, a strategic mindset allows you to call on a wide variety of alternatives—and having a broad array of possibilities will help you in all kinds of situations.
When you face a problem, think about all the reasons it may be occurring, so you can get to the root cause. When you are challenged in a relationship, empathize and consider multiple angles, knowing your perspective is only one. When you are stymied in your work, give thought to all the possible ways you can respond—so you can choose the best option. Essentially, seek to expand your thinking.
With a strategic mindset, you’re analyzing, planning, monitoring and revising—and these are especially important when you’re encountering new challenges or dealing with issues that keep cropping up again and again.
Be Intentional
Interestingly, a strategic mindset is intentional and forward-thinking. You can be specific about your thinking process—stepping back, thinking about how to do things differently or better, determining how to help yourself or others and broadening your approaches. All of these are about thinking consciously, purposely and deliberately.
When things seem out of control, these are excellent ways to gain back some agency and empowerment
