Escape the Local Optimum
Am I climbing the right hill, or just getting better at climbing the wrong one?
Ask yourself: Am I improving within my current frame, or should I be questioning the frame itself? Write down what you're currently improving. Then ask: If I zoomed out one level — changed the market, the approach, the goal, the role — is there a much better position available that incremental improvement within the current frame can never reach?
Progress has plateaued despite continued effort, or you sense that you're getting better at something that might not matter.
You're in a domain where incremental improvement is genuinely the right strategy and jumping frames would be destructive.
Why it works
Improving within your current frame can make you the best version of a suboptimal position. The most important strategic question is whether the frame itself is right — and that question is invisible when you're focused on improving within it.
Imagine climbing a hill in dense fog. You always step upward, and eventually you reach the top. But the fog clears and you see a much taller hill nearby. You can’t reach it by continuing to climb — you have to go down first. This is the local optimum trap: incremental improvement within your current frame leads to the best version of that frame, which may be far worse than an entirely different frame. The hardest strategic move is accepting that getting better at what you’re doing is the wrong strategy — that the right move is to get temporarily worse in pursuit of a fundamentally better position.