December 11th, 2005
What’s Your “Big Picture?”
Develop an overview of what your life is about, and gain a new sense of simplicity.
Measuring your current picture.
One of the first questions we ask people when they start The Strategic Coach Program™ is: “At what age are you going to die?†That might seem a bit impolite, reminding someone of their mortality, but this is a useful place to begin when looking at your plans for the future.
Everyone has a number.
Everyone has an idea of when they’re going to die. Most of us pick this “information†off our family tree, from our friends’ lives, or from other external influences. Financial advisors often get it from reading actuarial tables.
The number you have in mind is significant, not because it’s true, but because you will tend to live like it’s true.
Five or ten years before their number, most people start slowing down: They stop learning, stop investing in new things, and stop forming new relationships. When we decide to stop using our faculties, nature will happily take them back.
Getting a bigger picture.
What would you do if you had ten, 20, or even 30 years extra to live? Your answer to that question provides a big insight into what your life is really about — your “big picture.â€
Some of the elements in your big picture might be:
- your business
- your personal relationships
- your health
- the development of your abilities
- your community
- other interests, outside your business
Your business as a means to an end.
When entrepreneurs reach a certain level of success, their goals tend to turn outward, toward the world. Their big picture after a while isn’t about making money, but about the contribution they’re making.
This suggests that what we aspire to as human beings can’t be contained within a business. Human life is too big. Bill Gates has dedicated himself to ridding the world of malaria — one simple improvement that would completely change human life on this planet. Surprisingly, his big picture has nothing to do with you using Windows.
When you have a big-picture sense of what your life is about, your ideas about your business become very simple. The business is not an all-encompassing entity that surrounds you, but a vehicle you’ve created, a means to accomplish all your life’s goals. At the end of that life — and at every step along the way — your big picture offers you a sense of purpose and perspective. [via]
