When you usually think five-moves-ahead of others, and you like to be a quick thinker, the times when you’re stuck in thinking can be frustrating. Let’s talk about it.
This combination of the ability to have foresight (the “five moves ahead” part) and also to care about whether or not things happen in the most effective/efficient/best way possible is one of the trademark frictions of the Strategic Strength. I say “friction” because the anticipation tends to breed fast thinking, but the “best-seeking” tends to bring slow-downs. Or stuckness.
Especially when there’s potential negative consequences lurking behind one of those moves. (So if I could go left or right, but left will bring me a whole boatload of pain, I will be so pain avoidant, you’d think I was actively afraid of pain.)
But sometimes, I’m extremely risky. To the point of it seeming almost capricious how I make decisions. So why will I sometimes take big risks, and sometimes be so frozen, I look like I’m in fight or flight? Why will I avoid taking action until I’m completely drowning in the fear response?
Because my brain associates any kind of pain at all with something to be avoided. The more Strategic I am (especially if I lack some of the Strengths like Competition, Discipline, Focus, or Restorative that can be more pain friendly), and the more Strengths I have that make me avoid pain (Adaptability, Empathy, Positivity, Harmony, Relator, Developer, Strategic, Woo), the more likely I am to get frozen.
And I know this won’t be popular, but… the biggest freezer of them all is trauma response. And we sometimes think of “trauma” as being some kind of big word that’s only reserved for mortar shells. But because our brains are wired to condition ourselves to our environment, the actual word “trauma” can have a pretty broad spectrum. All it really takes is a consistent activation of our fear centers to cause trauma response to happen.
For instance, a lot of high Strategic people see “not the best possible outcome” as equal to “the worst outcome” without realizing it. Especially in situations where the stakes are very high (and what causes high stakes for you will depend more on your core motivations–see Claire Taylor’s work on Enneagram for more depth here). The higher the stakes, the more likely you are to nope-out of action when there’s any possibility that you won’t get the best-outcome that you want.
And I’m all for the upsides of Strategic. It’s an amazing, smart Strength and it has so many potential upsides.
Also. It has some major basements (and not just in its raw forms, but even mature Strategic can do this very basement-y form of inaction) where it stalls out decisions completely because there’s a chance we won’t get the optimum.
* There’s a chance I won’t hit higher than I hit with my last release.
* There’s a chance the person will stop talking to me if I’m honest with them.
* There’s a chance I won’t get invited to the anthology if I say no this time.
* There’s a chance I’ll need to sacrifice a relationship if I tell people what I really think.
* There’s a chance I won’t save as much time/money
* There’s a chance I’ll lose face
* There’s a chance I won’t get to do all the things
* There’s a chance I won’t reach my dreams
All of these fears can cause a major Strategic meltdown, to a point where the overwhelm shuts down decision-making completely. And I’ve been there. Trust me. I’m there currently.
But too often, we have artificially raised the stakes in a way we didn’t need to. We’ve made the outcome catastrophized, or we’ve made the potential “worst case” so big, we can’t see past it. We’re asking too many rhetorical questions.
Stop asking rhetorical questions. Answer the questions.
What happens if the release doesn’t go the way you want? You will have another release?
What happens if a relationship changes? You will find another relationship.
What happens if I don’t get invited? You will survive.
What happens if the book isn’t as good as I wanted it to be? You will write another book.
What happens if I miss out on a piece of information? You will either find the information from another source, or you will have another opportunity to learn it.
Too often, this best-seeking inaction causes us more pain than the negative outcome would cause us. And the impact of the stasis has a more difficult outcome than the action ever would have. Especially because we teach ourselves how to act.
When I keep re-writing something, I don’t learn the lesson I need to learn from having released the thing and seeing how people respond to it. When I keep waiting to run the ads, I don’t learn the lesson from the data I needed to learn. When I don’t have the conversation with the parent/spouse/friend/partner, I continue to be stuck in the pain, and I don’t get past it to the other side of whatever relief could happen.
And again, as with anything I say, take this with a grain of salt. It’s not for every single Strategic. But it’s something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately. And there are more Strategic lessons to be had. But this is one that has been quite large lately. Looming large.
What do you need in order to be better equipped to handle the disappointment or pain that might happen if you take the action? Do you need people to support you? Do you need a skill or tool? Do you need a catalyst?
Whatever we can provide here, we will. I just want you to think about how you use rhetorical questions. Don’t let them enter you into an inaction spiral. Answer the rhetorical questions with a plan for how you will reestablish security if the negative outcome happens. If you need the support of a good therapist, find one. And if you need to take small action today, take it.
As always, if you need us, we’re here. But my hope is that you’ll just use this as a catalyst for the day. To try a small action to deconstruct the resistance.
I apologize for coming for the Strategics today. You know I have it, too, and I’m always speaking to myself first, before I’m speaking to anyone else. But I hope this is helpful. You know I love you, my Strategic friends.
Becca