Being strategic is nothing more than taking literally 5 minutes to examine the problem of achieving your goal with an open mind, and translating that into next actions. The trouble is that most people don't bother linking goals to actions at all, they'd apparently rather aimlessly wander through life seemingly hoping to end up at a goal state by random chance.
Fixing this requires two things: (1) an ability to admit you're wrong (meaning what you are doing now, and what you have done in the past is/was not in fact effective at achieving your goals, and you should be doing something else instead), and (2) an ability to avoid bias in the brain storming process.
Suggested exercise: drop all preconceived notions of what you should be doing, and think for a literal five minutes -- set a timer on your phone or something -- doing nothing but enumerating possible pathways to achieving your goal. Do not evaluate, simply enumerate with pen and paper. When the buzzer goes off, evaluate and organize the options, then repeat, this time focusing on what tactics are necessary to implement the strategic pathways. After theroughly brainstorming at that level, make some decisions about which strategies and tactics to follow, for now, and repeat one more time the brain storming session, this time coming up with next actions.
This can take less than an hour, no matter the size of the goal. For example, it took me only 40 minutes to reduce "permanent and sustainable expansion of human settlements into the cosmos" to a next action related to Bitcoin commodity markets.
I suspect people actually have defined goals but are not specific enough about actions.
How are you saving the world? Please, let us know!
Whether it is solving the problem of death or teaching rationality, one of the correlated phenomena of being less wrong is making things better. Given the value many of us place on altruism, this extends beyond just ourselves and into that question of, “How can I make The Rest better?” The rest of my community. The rest of my country. The rest of my species. The rest of my world. To word it in a less other-optimizing way: How can I save the world?
So, tell us how you are saving the world. Not how you want to save the world. Not how you plan to. How you are, actively, saving the world. It doesn’t have to be “I invented a friendly AI,” or “I reformed a nation’s gender politics” or “I perfected a cryonics reviving process.” It can be a simple goal (“I taught a child how to recognize when they use ad hominen” or "I stopped using as much water to shower") or a simple action as part of a larger plan (such as “I helped with a breakthrough on reducing gas emissions in cars by five percent”).
If we accept this challenge of saving the world, then let us be open and honest with our progress. Let us put our successes on display and our shortcomings as well, so that both can be recognized, recommended, and, if need be, repaired.
If you are not doing anything to save the world, even something as simple as “learning about global risks” or “encouraging others to research a topic before deciding on it”? Then find something. Find a goal and work for it. Find an act that needs doing and do it.
Then tell us about it.