Here's how you can master strategic thinking in your career.

Strategic thinking is not hard to achieve. It's a process of continuous efforts toward goals by planning to think smartly by defining objectives, proper context, decision making and reflection on every decision while looking forward to collaborating. One more thing we can add to strategic thinking is mindfulness of our work, which can help us on reflecting every decision.

To begin mastering strategic thinking, it is essential to set clear and actionable goals. This means understanding what success looks like in your role and setting milestones that will help you get there. By setting these goals, you create a roadmap for your career. It's important to ensure that your goals are not only ambitious, but also realistic and aligned with your organization's values and objectives. Practicing mindfulness can help with this process, allowing you to approach goal-setting with a clear, focused mind, ensuring your ambitions are both grounded and future-oriented.

To begin mastering strategic thinking, you need to train your 'visionary' skills, when you have a vision, it's easier to define actionable goals to get there. Goals are part of your strategy of achieving this vision, you ca use various paths or tactics to get there instead of focusing on your path, which may change depending on the circumstances.

Stay curious about the broader landscape of your industry, constantly seeking to understand trends, challenges, and opportunities. This curiosity will naturally lead you to gather diverse perspectives, which is key to strategic thinking. Next, embrace the art of reflection. Take time to review past experiences, both successes, and setbacks, and extract valuable lessons from them. Reflecting on your own decision-making processes and outcomes can provide invaluable insights into what worked well and what could be improved upon. Don't underestimate the power of collaboration! Surround yourself with colleagues who bring different expertise and viewpoints to the table.

Understanding the context in which you operate is crucial for strategic thinking. This involves analyzing the industry landscape, recognizing your organization's strengths and weaknesses, and identifying opportunities and threats. Pay attention to both internal dynamics and external factors that can impact your professional trajectory. Use the practice of mindfulness to remain present and detached as you gather and process this information. This will help you make more informed decisions, not clouded by past experiences or future anxieties.

Assessing context in order to adapt and be flexible when context changes. As a former Risk Management director, I can add, that evaluation of context inside and outside the organisation is directly related with identifying and assessing the risks and opportunities. This is an important part of company's strategy, any risk can have a negative impact on achieving company's strategic objectives.

Strategic thinking is really about making decisions. You need to be able to balance your options, take any consequences into account, and decide which course best serves your strategic objectives. Through promoting composure and lowering impulsivity, mindfulness can improve decision-making. This makes it possible for you to clearly and stress-free think on your options, which helps you make more careful and considered choices. Recall that applying strategic thinking frequently necessitates making difficult decisions that may not seem advantageous right away but will pay off in the long run.

When you start training your strategic mindset it starts from the inside, using mindfulness exercises. While as you continue developing, your strategic skills you will need to collaborate with and manage stakeholders, partnerships and your team members. In this phase of your strategic mindset journey, intra-personal skills will play an important role.