Big Picture Smart Questions and Tips

"Just because we increase the speed of information doesn't mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture." -- Dale Dauten

"The trouble with many of us is that we just slide along in life. If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two-week vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days." -- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Visualize yourself standing before a gateway on a hilltop. Your entire life lies out before you and below. Before you step through, pause and review the past; the learning and the joys, the victories and the sorrows -- everything it took to bring you here." -- The Book of Runes

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and follow where they lead." -- Louisa May Alcott

"The only limits are, as always, those of vision." -- James Broughton

Take a few minutes today to pull back from the details of your life to look at the bigger picture with fresh eyes. We can get so caught up in busyness that we lose our perspective and sense of purpose and direction. It's worth a few moments of your time to regularly ensure that you're doing life, instead of life doing you. It's only when we look at the big picture that we truly put ourselves in the driver's seat.

Do you have a big picture for your life? Always have a larger, purposeful, even spiritually ideal picture of where you are going. Your mind needs to have a clear and challenging vision to draw you ever upwards.

Answer these Smart Questions in your journal.

• How is your life out of balance? What can you do to achieve more balance?
• What relationships need more attention?
• What major issues keep repeating in your life?
• What truly gives you meaning?
• What can you do to have more fun in all areas of your life?
• If today were your last day to live, what would not be fulfilled in you?

"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action." -- James Levin

"Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success." -- Richard Carlson