How to Win the Big Picture

Brendon Burchard explains how to stay focused on your biggest goals all year using a "battle board" to track personal and professional priorities. He argues that winning requires mindset shifts, habit tracking, and coaching to keep you aligned with what actually matters: aliveness, deep connections, and meaningful work.
You got to win the big picture. I think you have to win the big picture every day. You need to know what the big picture is. That might be your big goals and dreams, your big deadlines, your big launches, the stuff coming up, the vacations, the life, you know, the kids, choir, all the big things that are coming up. And you got to orient your life to moving into those things with good energy. You've got to win the big picture. Take a screenshot. Here we go. Okay, you've got to win the big picture. What does that mean? What that means to me is that you have decided and determined what the big rhythm of your year should be. Meaning if you know what your priorities are, you're going to win the picture. Win the big picture. Every day. In such a way you look at the whole year or you look out even one, two or three years.
Every day. Every day.
Now this is going to be like. You're going to be like what? Most people don't even look at their goals for the day. And I'm saying the whole year. I need you to look at the whole year.
Every day.
This one practice will change your life forever. That's what I mean by win the big picture.
Every day.
I want you to write this down.
Every day.
Look at the whole year. Could you write it down for me? Cash in the notes, even for yourself.
Every day.
Look at the whole year.
Every day.
You are not managing time well unless you do that every day. Why? Because what's on there is how you're managing your life. And so some of you know my way of winning the big picture. So I come into this office right off over camera over here I have what's called my battle board, right? It's what I call. I'm sure it's a silly name, but many of you heard me teach this, but I do it every day. I'm the motivational guy and I have to still come in and re anchor myself and review what am I doing this year. So I have 12 boxes and we're on. What's the battleboard? It's 12 boxes on some butcher paper I drew out. And it has my personal and professional goals or my personal development theme every single month for the 12 months. But also on there are my vacations with my wife. They're all blocked up there. Blocked time. Like dates and times in which I'm going on vacation or I have a big project rolling out or we're launching something just to look at it. Because I don't know about you guys, but is there Anyone. I can't be alone in this. Where I kind of get lost in the days and the weeks where sometimes you're really hustling, you're busy, but you're kind of like, what am I going after here? What's happening? Like you're working hard, but you feel almost disconnected from the flow of things. But winning the big picture is planning around the big priorities of the year and you got to look at them. So if a big priority of the year is family vacation, we'll make sure that's on the calendar. And you know when that is and you're thinking well in advance, what are all the things I need to do before that vacation? Not just showing up the day before the vacation, oh, my God, I have to do these 50 things. No, you knew for weeks and months that was coming up because you looked at it every day. This one simple thing has changed so many of my clients lives. I need you to look at the whole year, every day. Now I know if you're in a place in your life where you're making like a major transition, you maybe you got laid off, you got sick, something's going on with your business and you have to reinvent it can be intimidating because you go, but Brandon, there's nothing on the calendar. You know, I used to have so much certainty in this job, but now I don't even know. I mean, it's just empty. That's intimidating. I'm like, good, keep looking. Your brain will start filling it in. Your brain is a fill in machine, right? It just wants to fill those boxes in. You draw a box on a page, your brain wants to color it in. Can't help it. And so you know what the truth is, some days you'll look at it and you won't know what to color in there. You won't know to put in. But I promise you, with this winning the big picture, all of a sudden you start developing themes in your life. You have a rhythm of life. You say, oh, you know what? This is what I do every week, every month, every quarter, every year. And there's a rhythm now. And when you break from that rhythm or you lose context to the bigger picture, you tend to end up really busy, but not fulfilled. You tend to end up kind of in a place where like, oh, I don't feel good about life. You know, you feel disconnected from the rhythm of life because you haven't established your own. So win the big picture every day. I just want you to look at the whole year. Please give yourself the Gift. I don't do it in Google Calendar. I don't do it in any tool. I don't use any particular app for that big picture. I have to look at it. And what I do, I literally stand over there like this for like five minutes. That's it. Nothing fancy, ladies and gentlemen. Just staring at it, letting my brain catch up and re anchor. Oh yeah, because I don't know about you, I'm somebody. I wake up every morning extremely dumb. I mean dumb like blank slate dumb. You know, I know that's not true for everybody. Anyone else wake up dumb. I just wake up dumb. And I'm dumb for hours if I don't do something about it. I mean, I'm just dumb for hours. So to kickstart my brain, I need to re anchor to, to my goals, to my year. And by looking at it all the time, I never get to a month. I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't know this was coming. It's like, of course I knew that was coming. And if it's a surprise, no problem. I can orient it in terms of the other goals and priorities I already have. Can't tell you how big important that is. You got to win the big picture. I think you have to win the big picture every day. You need to know what the big picture is that might be your big goals and dreams, your big deadlines, your big launches, the stuff coming up, the vacations, the life, you know, the kids choir, all the big things that are coming up. And you got to orient your life to moving into those things with good energy.
All human beings, what we really desire, once we get past safety and sustenance, are these four aspirations. We want a greater sense of aliveness. That might mean presence, consciousness, awareness, vibrancy, passion, enthusiasm. We all want more of that. Some people call it adventure.
Some people call it just the spice of life or joie de vivre, whatever it is.
We want a sense of aliveness. The second aspiration we talked about was deep connections. That means your relationships. At the end of our lives, it's the relationships that matter so much to us. And we know from research that the deeper relationships you have, the longer we live. Third, meaningful pursuits. Some people get this through creating some. Some people get this through service. But I'm here to tell you, the important phrase here is meaningful pursuits. You have to pursue something. We all want to get better, to become more, to be a better leader, a parent servant role model, that sense each day that we have something to do that matters. Growth day world's number one system for achieving it. We know from research.
To improve your life long term, you.
Gotta track your habits.
You need a mindset, that journal. You got to have a goal setting system. You need deep dive education, you need coaching. You got to have ongoing conversations with other people about your personal and your professional goals. Our goal for you is to help.
You make self improvement a way of life by giving you things that give you the guidance, the inspiration, the drive.
And the motivation to continue becoming more and more successful, healthy and happy in your life.
Every day is a great day to grow.
We say that every, every day in growth day. Let's make this day the day you begin that journey.










