Taking Strategically Messy Action To Achieve Your Goal

One of the best ways to take action towards your goals is to be strategically messy.  The path to achieving your goals is not a straight line.  There are a lot of obstacles, detours, and challenges that you’ll experience along the way.  The path will look messy but you can be strategic about it.  This is how you can take strategic, messy action to achieve your goals.

Strategically Messy

Imagine a blank, white piece of paper.  You start taking action towards your goals and a line begins to draw on the page.  It may go up, down, backwards, sideways, around.  It may look like you just scribbled all over the page.  Yet, with each action you gain new information.  You make adjustments and keep going.  This is where the strategic part comes into play.  From what you’ve learned in the past, you can course correct.  You know not to go in certain directions, repeat past unfavorable experiences, or revisit certain spots.  With each action step you’re taking, you’re getting new information that’s getting you closer to achieving your goal.  It’s almost like playing the game battleship.  With each new set of coordinates, you’re gaining information to strategically narrow in on your goal.

The Scientist

Now, back to your messy drawing.  Visualize yourself as a mad scientist who has the pen in your hand and you are creating the scribbles on the page.  Through your smart, sciencey looking glasses, you stick your tongue out to one side of your mouth as if it helps you to think better as you look at the page.  An idea forms in your mind.  Then, you put the pen to the paper and start drawing again, pausing and adjusting every now and then.  It’s like an artist creating a masterpiece.  With each strategic stroke of the pen, you’re completing this messy masterpiece.

Not In Control

If you were really in complete control of the pen and able to draw the perfect picture to achieve your goals then life would be incredibly simple.  But, that’s not reality.  The pen almost has a mind of its own.  You are collaborating with life to create this beautiful, messy masterpiece of a drawing.  You are only in so much control and the rest is left up to the universe and its greater plans for you.  This may cause the drawing to turn out quite differently than what you had originally intended.  But, you just have to trust that it will work out.

Trust

In order to take strategic, messy action to achieve your goal, you have to have a lot of trust.  It’s trusting that through your strategically, messy action you’ll gain more clarity.  Trust yourself that you’ll be able to figure things out.  Trust that you’ll be smart enough to know when to course correct and make adjustments.  It’s trusting that with each challenge or detour you’re learning something and are actually getting closer to achieving your goals rather than setting you farther back.  It’s trusting that the timeline you think you should achieve your goals may not be the actual, real timeline.  Trust that this strategically, messy masterpiece will turn out beautiful in its own way.

Taking strategically, messy action to achieve your goals isn’t about getting it right or perfect on the first try.  It’s going to take multiple attempts, hard work, dedication, and perseverance to not give up.  It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to require you to be strategic about it.  You’re going to have to think about the path, the actions, and how to overcome challenges to achieve your goals.  It’s not going to go perfectly or exactly as you thought, when you thought.  But, if you trust that it will work out, trust yourself to figure out your next strategic action step, then you’ll be on your way to creating the most beautiful, messy masterpiece of a path to actually achieving your goal! 

Take Action Challenge

The Strategically Messy Action Plan

Step 1. Draw Your Messy Path

Grab a blank piece of paper and draw a messy squiggly line from one side of the page to the other.

Along the line, write:

• Obstacles you’ve faced
• Lessons you’ve learned
• Detours you’ve taken
• Wins you’ve experienced
• Moments you almost gave up

This is proof that growth is rarely a straight line.

Step 2. Identify Your Next Strategic Move

Ask yourself, what is the next strategic action step you can take with the information you have right now?

It's not the whole plan.
Not the perfect roadmap.
Just the one next best step.

Then, commit to taking that action within the next 24 hours.

Step 3. Stop Waiting To Feel Ready

Write down one area where you’ve been delaying taking action because things feel uncertain, messy or unclear.

Then, challenge yourself by asking, what if clarity comes because you took action?

Sometimes movement creates the answers and clarity you’re waiting for.

Step 4. Create A Trust Evidence List

Make a list of the:

• Times you figured things out
• Challenges you've overcame
• Moments life worked out differently, but better
• Skills you’ve gained through the hard seasons in life

This becomes evidence that you can trust yourself through uncertainty.

Step 5. Celebrate Imperfect Progress

At the end of the week, reflect on:

• What action you took
• What you learned
• How you adapted
• What new clarity you gained

Remember, messy progress is still progress.  It's the action that creates the clarity you need to achieve your goal.