Mastering Life's Tapestry

Cultivating a Strategic Heart

Strategy is a word that gets thrown around a lot.

But not all strategy is the same.

Our aim? To think in decades, not just days.

Those who think only in terms of days. Of “What am I going to do today?” are trapped.

It's a limiting cycle.

The real prize is the ability to plan months, years, even decades ahead.

To grasp the long arc of our existence. To understand our actions, our trajectory, and the path to our destination.

In committing ourselves to something larger than ourselves we must determine what is ours to do and creating plans of action and following through on actually moving towards those things.

Time is finite. We can't possibly experience even a minuscule fraction of everything. That's where strategy and vision come in—they're the bedrock from which we build. They steer our choices, spotlighting our unique path and how we'll bring our vision to life over the years.

In my life I’ve been working with the sense that I haven’t been proactive enough.

To do strategy is to be proactive. It’s to lean into life.

Strategizing is figuring out what problems can be solved. Ideating on what the best way is to solve them. Creating a plan of action. Executing and then doing it again. Strategizing, action, strategizing, action.

Diving into strategy literature, you'll find it's often about warfare. Take The Art of War by Sun Tzu—a classic example.

But strategy is also the backbone of effective decision-making.

And that's where vision comes in. What's the endgame of your strategy?

What's the vision you're turning into reality? That's the vision piece, just as crucial as the strategy part.

Multi-dimensional Life Strategizing as the Route to Self-Actualization

Strategy transcends career planning.

It's about segmenting our life, balancing different growth areas simultaneously, and living a life that embraces holistic development.

Recognizing the interconnectedness of various growth facets helps us understand the need for a multi-dimensional life strategy.

This strategy encompasses career, but also emotional, ethical, spiritual, and relational growth. It's about envisioning how to deepen these life aspects.

A life that balances financial stability with spiritual depth, emotional intelligence, ethical decision-making, and intellectual growth.

Mastering one life dimension is tough enough, let alone several. That's why strategic planning is vital.

Multi-Dimensional Visioning

When thinking about what we want out of our lives, the more that we can take into account multi-dimensionality the more that we can move towards a life that is actually satisfying on the deepest level.

A life that not only honors the need for putting one’s finances in check, while also pursuing spiritual depth, capacities for emotional communication, as well as putting in place strong guiding principles for ethical choice-making and giving the space for developing sensemaking and intellectual capacities.

It’s difficult enough to develop one of these dimensions of our life. Naturally we can understand why strategizing is needed to account for multiple of these dimensions in our life.

Enacting These Strategies

Strategizing is about getting really clear on what it will take. Asking ChatGPT to create me a strategy on multi-dimensional life strategy popped out this flow chart.

Which is pretty spot on, at least to start.

We take into account the different dimensions of our life that we’re strategizing about and then we figure out what the dimensions are that we can develop in each of these different domains and then we enact strategies to move towards them in meaningful ways and we keep showing up to the fear of doing the things that we don’t want to do and figuring out what it will take to actually enact these.

A Quick Sidenote About Orienting Towards Love

First, depth of love is extremely important. Without love, nothing matters.

I mean how could anything be worth doing if it wasn’t motivated by love?

Love is that which guides us towards the good. Towards making choices in order to do our best to truly make the world better. To act in service of the good.

And strategy is what gets us to move one foot in front of the other in service of that love in each day of our lives.

It’s not that to love we must build a non-profit that solves world hunger and if we don’t do that then we aren’t actualizing the full potential of our love.

Not at all.

It’s that there are difficult tasks that are calling us forth in this very moment.

Actions that are just outside of your current capacity that we can strive towards in service of showing up for that which is sacred.

In showing up to them we feel that life is sacred.

Whatever I do is sacred. If I don’t treat each moment, each action and each thought I have as sacred then I will end up harming others and there will be externalities to my actions.

The strategy and the vision that I commit to in my life get me to show up in service of that which is sacred to me and to perpetually increase the depth of love for myself and others even amidst intense suffering.

As Jordan Peterson says “The meaning that sustains you and protects you from corruption during suffering is to be found in responsibility. So pick up the heaviest load you can bear and stumble forward.”

What if in each moment where we were called to do something we asked ourselves “What would it look like to fully show up in service of future generations and the overall health of the planet and existence writ large?”

And even when we’re feeling intense suffering we continue to step up to this challenge the best we can.

Holding the Tension of Micro and Macro

There are two pitfalls to avoid: obsessing over micro, day-to-day tasks, or getting lost in the grand vision without managing the daily grind.

The key is to balance both the micro and macro perspectives. To keep the vision in sight while tackling the small, sometimes undesirable tasks that incrementally lead us there.

Over time, passion in our work and life can grow. Initially, though, it may be mundane and challenging—a reality we must embrace and work with.

The macro vision might be creating resources for those seeking to elevate their consciousness, striving for more nuanced, truthful, beautiful states of being.

The micro tasks could be as simple as recording a video you've been postponing or learning a new skill through an online course.

Even the tedium of a course module can be significant when viewed through the lens of a larger goal.

Practices That Work For You

The act of writing this article you’re reading right now is part of my strategic decision to clarify my thinking and creatively express what’s been on my mind.

Writing this IS my practice.

As well as meditation, authentic relating, reading, etc.

When I’m clear on these practices as the foundation that guides me towards my vision in life, I see that choosing to do them each and everyday is one of the best strategic decisions that I could possibly make.

My Path in Life

One thing that I was truly excited to do was go traveling. I knew that it would give me a chance to escape the bubble of american culture and would force me to confront challenges outside of those experience in surbubia. Ultimately, it:

Force me to experience a lifestyle radically different than my own.

The minute I stepped off the plane, it was do or die.

I had to find where I was going to sleep, how to get there, and then where I was going.

It required that certain skills be developed, because without them I would be doomed.

It’s another version of the conditions of no escape that I’ve talked about in previous newsletters.

Strategizing Around Conditions of No Escape on Each Aspect of Development

Conditions of no escape are commonly thought about in terms of spiritual development.

But what about relational, emotional and ethical conditions of no escape.

Therapy is a condition of no escape for emotional development.

What about a condition of no escape for ethical development?

This may include dialogue with a person that holds radically different values or perspectives.

Strategy Helps Us Overcome Distraction

Without a strategy we will inevitably be pulled by the forces of life.

When we find a purpose that we truly care about then strategy is a sign of our love for that thing.

Strategy is what enables us to deepen our appreciation, understanding, participation and focus on the thing that matters most to us.

As I’m writing about this I can’t help but notice how strategy has this air and tone of being gray and dull and dark.

Like it’s a lifeless, heady, masculine, rational act. Just strategize, create a plan and act on it — No heart.

Of course there are some people that create and enact strategies without any heart involve but this doesn’t mean that strategy and heartlessness are the same thing.

What I’m focused on here is figuring out how to utilize strategy in service of that which is sacred to us.

When we don’t have a map on how to live, what is meaningful and how we’re going to get there then it feels unlikely that we would ever continually choose to do the extremely difficult yet virtuous thing.

Deep strategy affords us to stand against our suffering rather than to just veg out on netflix and social media, wasting our days away.

How will your life be different in 10 years if you spend 20% more time strategizing about your self-actualization and 20% less time scrolling through social media?

Now you see the importance of strategizing.

Just Making a Plan is Better Than Nothing

We all have problems in our life. They’re endless.

Meaningfulness arises when we identify the problems clearly. (oftentimes we don’t even understand what the problem is.)

Then we figure out the constituent parts of problem.

Then we figure out what needs to get done.

Then we do those things.

Then we create another plan.

As we continue down this cycle, if we hold the intention to be in service to that which is sacred then our plans will increasingly support deepening the intensity and breadth of love that we show up for in our lives.

As Seth Godin writes about in his book The Dip, “don’t abandon the long-term strategy (a career, relationship, sale) but quitting that tactics that aren’t working to get you to that strategy.” When the strategy is clear we can stick with it despite all else, even if how we materialize that vision changes a million times amidst the journey.

Traps and Pitfalls

Without a strategy we will inevitably fall into the numerous traps and pitfalls along the way.

Strategy is the immune system of the developmental process.

Without it, viruses like doubt, fear, laziness, distraction and self-deception will creep in and ruin our lives.

Strategy helps us see in the each moment the necessity of delayed gratification and why seeking immediate pleasure isn’t the right answer.

Strategy and mastery go hand in hand. When we learn to delay gratification we give ourselves the capability of actually developing mastery of something in life.

Without strategy and vision it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever develop deep mastery of mind, heart, soul, or love.

In order to avoid the common pitfalls and traps of that culture and society have laid out for us we must incessantly and strategically study our own self deceptive mechanisms — the ways in which we go unconscious.

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Thanks for reading.

Want more?

• Read my book The Depth Equation

• Listen to an episode of the Become Conscious Podcast

With Love,

Ethan