Have you ever felt ready and excited to improve some area of your life, but were unable to find the right strategy to follow?

Many times I’ll hear people who want to lose some excess weight saying that they are looking for the right diet to follow, or people who want to build an online business saying that they’re looking for the right system to follow, etc.

The sentiment is that they feel ready and excited to take action, but they just can’t seem to find the right strategy to follow.

In the success formula triangle I talked about in my previous post, I state that there are three main components to success – mindset, strategy and action.

Having the right mindset helps you answer the questions “What do I really want?” and “Why do I want this?”

Having the right strategy helps you answer the question “How will I accomplish this?” and “What do I need to do?“.

Once you know what you want to accomplish, why you want to accomplish it, how you’ll accomplish it and what you need to do, then the final part of the process is to take the necessary action steps to accomplish it.

It may sound simplistic but whenever someone is having challenges trying to accomplish anything in life, it always breaks down to one of these components.

The interesting thing is that while 98% of the people that come to me for advice show weakness in the mindset & action taking parts of the triangle, they all think that strategy is where they are lacking.

Usually when I ask my coaching students “What do YOU think is your challenge? Why do YOU think you’re not succeeding right now?“, in almost every case without exception people say “I just don’t know what to do” or in some cases they say “I just don’t know how to do it“.

Knowing what to do and how to do it is related to strategy, not mindset or action.

The funny thing is that while everyone blames strategy for their inability to achieve results, the problem is almost always in mindset or the taking action parts of the formula.

When I was younger, I used to have the attitude and belief that if I could find a business model of some sort that was a tried and tested model for making money and it was proven to produce results for others, that I could jump into that model and that I would be able to produce amazing results.  Meaning, I was under the impression that the only thing missing from my life is the right strategy to follow.

I would think that if I could just find the right strategy, I would tear it up and produce results like nobody has ever seen before.  I blamed my lack of results on being part of a “system” or “strategy” that was ineffective.  Meaning, it was my “bosses” fault, or the “company” I worked for that was the problem – not me.  And I thought that as soon as I find the right company or business model to work on, I would be ultra successful.

Luckily, I had the unique privilege of jumping into a proven business model at a very young age and being shown a strategy that was virtually guaranteed to produce results as long as you approach it with the right attitude/mindset, put in the work and essentially “work the system“.  I thought I was going to be ultra successful at this, but two years later I wasn’t getting anywhere.  Others were getting results, but I wasn’t and I couldn’t figure out why.

It wasn’t that the system or company (strategy) that didn’t work, it was that I didn’t have the right mindset to consistently take the action steps required to achieve results.

Even thought I didn’t achieve success in that venture, it was actually one of the best lessons I have ever learned in my life and it was one of the catalysts for a lot of my future success.

See, after that experience I realized that strategy alone isn’t everything.  I realized that it’s not just about “What do I need to do?“.  I realized that there are millions of different strategies out there with varying degrees of effectiveness, but the effectiveness of the strategy is almost never a problem – it’s the effectiveness of the person executing the strategy.

The same thing has been proven in business many times.  It is not the companies with the most effective strategies that win, but rather the companies who are the best at executing their strategies.

A company with a perfect A+ strategy, but with weak execution goes bankrupt.  A company with even a mediocre C- strategy, but with strong execution rules the marketplace.  This is what most people never realize.

I realized this way back in my early 20′s and in the areas of my life where I have seen a lot of success, the success had a lot more to do with mindset, attitude and execution than it did with having the best strategy.

I learned a long time ago not to obsess over strategy so much like I still see a lot of people doing.  Don’t get me wrong – strategy is important, so of course I do try to work with the best strategy I can find, but I don’t obsess over it exclusively, ignoring the other two parts – Mindset and Taking Action.

I’m not saying I’m perfect at this either.  I’ve caught myself many times putting too much energy into trying to figure out the “perfect” system for doing something, instead of getting clear on what I want, why I want it, and taking action.  But at least I’m aware of this and I try to work on it and improve that area of my life.

How to Attract the Best Strategy For You

So, what IS the best way to find the right strategy for success in your life?

Let’s say that you do want to lose weight, or to build a blog, or to start a new business, or to learn how to take better photographs.  How do you find the right strategy to follow?

Well, the answer might surprise you a bit.

I have found that the absolute best place to start when trying to find the right strategy for anything is to work on your Mindset first.

It may sound counter-intuitive at first, but focus your efforts on knowing WHAT you want and WHY you want it first.  Don’t worry about strategy at all at first.  Just figure out what you want.  Imagine that you had a super-computer at your disposal that could generate the absolute best strategy possible for anything, but it first required you to input exactly WHAT you and and WHY you want it.

Imagine if that computer was absolutely perfect and finding the right strategy for you, but it refused to give you any answer until you first fed it enough data on what you want and why you want it.

The truth is that you DO have access to such a computer.  Your subconscious mind is absolutely amazing at finding and attracting the perfect strategy for anything you want to accomplish in life, as soon as you get your mindset right and figure out what you want and why.

So, if you want to find the best strategy for weight loss, figure out what you want (ie. how much weight you want to lose) and why.

If you want to find the best strategy for blogging, figure out what you want and why.

If you want to find the best strategy for meeting your future spouse, figure out what you want in a spouse and why.

Starting to see the pattern?

Don’t worry about strategy at first.  Just figure out what you want and why you want it, and the right strategy will show up in your life.

If you think you know what you want and why you want it, and it’s been a few weeks and the right strategy still hasn’t shown up, chances are that you’re still not clear enough with your intentions.

Every time I have every gotten clear on what I want and why I want it, it’s like the perfect course, book, person, coach, blog post or some other thing pops into my life and shows me the “How”.

The universe seems to show us the “How” almost instantly, but first we need to tell it “What” we want, and “Why” we want it.

Try it out, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

“How” is only an issue when there is a lack of clarity in the “What” and the “Why”.