Clarity Comes Before Strategy

This is by far my favorite article… it's the most common advice I discuss with my clients.

To set the stage:

This isn’t advice in the way most people mean it. Because this isn’t about what you should consider doing. And it isn’t designed to give you answers that can be applied immediately. 

This is intentional.

When I am going to put content into the world, I want it to bring value. Literally not inspirationally. So if there is actionable insight, I will give it freely and happily. But at certain stages of building a business, advice stops being the thing that helps most.

Why advice works early on, and then doesn’t

Early on, advice is useful because the terrain is simple. Not easy, but less complex. There are usually obvious next steps. The consequences are more limited. And most decisions are reversible.

At that stage, hearing what worked for someone else can be genuinely helpful. You can try it, see what happens, and adjust. 

As the business grows, that logic breaks down. Decisions become more contextual. What works depends on timing, constraints, people, and history. The cost of getting it wrong increases.

When you reach that point, generic advice becomes less useful. I’m not suggesting it’s bad or wrong. Rather, that it’s disconnected from the specifics of what you’re actually holding. 

Why more information often makes things worse

When clarity starts to slip, many capable people respond by gathering more input. Reading more articles on the topic. Listening to more perspectives. Considering different frameworks that promise clarity. 

Sometimes that helps temporarily. But most often, it adds noise.

If you haven’t yet, check out the book Noise. It discusses why noise is deceivingly derailing.

More information doesn’t create clarity when the issue is context. It just increases the number of things you have to reconcile.

You can identify when noise is affecting you by noticing the moment when you start to feel overwhelmed without being able to point to a single cause.

It usually feels confusing, and we tend to assume we don’t know enough or are missing something obvious. When the reality is that noise makes us confused because and it’s because we are holding too much without a clear way to make sense of it (ie. context). 

What clarity actually means at this stage

The flattened messaging we all get is that clarity means having all the answers. That’s not correct, and not helpful.

Having clarity means:

• understanding what kind of decisions you’re making right now

• seeing how those decisions relate to each other

• knowing what matters in context, even if you’re still unsure how to proceed

Clarity is orientation, not certainty.

It’s the difference between standing in the middle of a room full of moving parts, and knowing which ones are actually connected.

That kind of clarity rarely comes from advice. It comes from making space to think. Slowly enough to notice patterns, and honestly enough to name the tradeoffs.

If you’re reading this and wondering what to do next

There may not be a next step yet. 

I know, it’s not comforting to hear that! Finding clarity happens when we stop pushing to figure out what to do with urgency. So, if something in this article helped you name an experience that you hadn’t quite articulated, that’s enough for now.

Clarity builds gradually, not all at once. And it typically shows up as relief before it shows up as direction. Let yourself feel the relief and you’ll know what to do when it’s time. 

When the direction becomes available, it will be quieter and more specific than advice ever is.