Strategic planning is a process where you examine and report out your organizational goals,

capabilities, and operating systems that will be used in the future time frame.

It basically reveals how we survive or thrive in widely divergent conditions.

Often, this involves a complex exercise around various hypothetical conditions. such as a
predicted recession, emergency, or even good fortune.

This process openly discusses “what ifs” so the corporation thrives even in the worst
conditions. Current and future shareholders can make informed decisions on their invested
or stock sales.

Each department can build their operating plans with a nod to the strategic planning. Any
weaknesses are easily revealed and can be modified into strengths to confirm to
shareholders and executives that they have prepared for good times, emergency actions,
and bad times accordingly.

On a smaller level, we can answer the question about surviving with a sudden work disability
in our own home budgeting. The exercise is nearly identical to what a company or
government must do.

 Financial growth. It is important that the company’s higher management pays

lots of attention to evaluating company’s capabilities, especially financial ones, and
gives the right direction for their appliance. All this results in increased profitability
of the company.
 Endurance. Market is constantly changing and to be able to withstand its
challenges it is important that companies have a clear vision of their opportunities
in the future and their moves are strategically planned.
 Sagacity. When you are involved in the strategic planning, especially in the case
of management, it is easier for you to understand your competitors and how to
overcome them.
 Evolution. Strategic management means that you are constantly looking for
ways to improve the already existing structures within your company, therefore,
optimizing its activity and improving the overall performance.

There are 4 steps to SWOT:

1)Write down:
Take a paper and divide it into four quarters. Label each area as S, W, O, T. Identify the area
of your life that you are gonna address via SWOT.
[I have taken an example of "A typical Food Blogger's anxiety" to illustrate this
analysis, instead of getting too personal  - Write down the answers to following
questions(you can come up with any number & type of questions) in the allotted quarter.]

Strength
Qn: Which areas do I excel in?
Ans: Cooking
Qn: What skills and capabilities do I possess?
Ans: Presentation, Photography

Weakness
Qn: What skills do I need to develop?
Ans: Networking, SEO, Social Media
Qn: Which personal difficulties do I need to work through to reach my goals?
Ans: Being regular, taking care of family & kids, time constraint, coming up with innovative
ideas for cooking.

Opportunities
Qn: Which circumstances can help me achieve my goals?
Ans: Managing time efficiently by plotting couple of hours everyday to blogging(having a
schedule),
following number of blogs to get inspired to further innovate the cooking style.
Qn: What could be the outcome, if I fulfil the above answer?
Ans: A balance between blogging and personal life, bringing steady flow of audiences,
making bucks via advertisements.

Threats
Qn: What obstacles am I currently facing?
Ans: Dearth of creative ideas.
Qn: Which fears are holding me back?
Ans: Fear of not being regular, Fear of loosing audience, Fear of uncertainty.

The problem is half solved already, when you know what you have and what you don't. Yes,
writing or jotting down is the first step towards achieving any goals. It is not without any
reason that people take notes while in a meeting or a conference. Richard Branson,  still runs
around carrying a small notebook(in the era of phablets and tablets), to take note of
anything and everything important that he comes across.

2)Think laterally and get a third person's opinion:

Sometimes the strengths that you have, may not look like a unique quality to you - but a
third person(say a friend) can help you realize the strength or weakness. You may also want
to get people who are close to you to share their perspective, especially on your strengths
and weaknesses.
3)Understanding the concept of "One quality leading to another":
Remember one thing, strengths tend to lead to opportunities and weaknesses tend to lead
to threats.
For example, if a weakness that you have is that, your cooking skills are limited to one
particular cuisine(say South Indian), the threat might be that there is only so much that you
can do with one type of cooking, which means in some time you are gonna run out of
ideas(so that is a threat). The opportunity is that you can learn a different cuisine and turn
that into your strength.

4)Apply the findings:

Once the list is ready, you need to look for ways to apply your findings. You can start
applying your findings by asking questions about each quadrant. For example you can ask:
How can you use your strengths to maximize your potential? How can you get rid off your
weakness? How can you find opportunity? How can avert threats? The answers to these
questions will help you with the strategies for achieving your goals.

You should have a much clearer perspective about who you are, where you are headed, and
what opportunities you need to pursue, once you are done with applying the findings. Try
out when you have sometime, perhaps it will help.

Strategy games are addictive because they challenge the brain to solve problems and
achieve goals. TBS games are ultra-addictive because they do so at a pace the brain can
easily cope with (because the player effective sets the pace of the game, depending on how
often he clicks the turn button). So he neither gets exhausted (as in RTS clickfests like AoE
and Starcraft) nor bored by the lulls in gameplay.

Another factor, which I find specifically applicable to Civ, is that it exploits some level of
obsessive-compulsive behaviour that many people possess. Once a turn begins, a series of
tasks pops up (build orders, movement orders, e.t.c) , so an obsessive mind cannot leave this
unfinished and gives an order, then the caret zooms at the next city or unit and so on, until
the turn button starts flashing. Add to this the sense of pride in building something perfect,
or in the most efficient way in a controlled fashion (perfectionism).

I love them; they’re among my favorite game genres. I especially have a place in my heart for turn-based
tactics games, like the Front Mission series:

I’ve played at least one TBT game on every platform I’ve ever played on, so I can say that I’m pretty
intimate with the genre. Currently my newest turn-based darling is Atlas Reactor:
As for real-time strategy games, I’m a veteran of many of the classics: Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and
Conquer, Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, Supreme Commander—
those are the ones I’ve played fairly extensively.

I like these games partly because I see simulations of war and combat as opportunities to exercise
mental skills, particularly resource management, priority management, risk-benefit analysis, reaction
times, long-term planning, and many more.