Self-Coaching Tool: The Wheel of Life
Make a full audit of your life. Understand what is not working and fix it.
The aspiration for happiness is the major driving force for every person. We want to be happy. There is nothing wrong with it. To reach inner harmony and to live a truly meaningful and fulfilled life one should fight the battle for himself on all battlefronts, tackling every single aspect of his life. So why do people fail to identify the ways of doing it effectively?
Partially the complication lies in the selection of the right tools. Many people who want to change their lives do not know where to go simply because they do not know what is their starting point. You will not be effective in improving your life if you do not understand which areas require improvement in the first place. You can only get to point B if you know where point A is. Self-awareness is the key.
The first step is to identify your status quo. You must detect the things that are not working inside you and in your life. I know, keeping all your thoughts about yourself and scrambling them inside your head feels overwhelming. So, stop keeping them inside. Let it all out. Dissect yourself.
I want to share with you a self-assessment tool that is very well-known among practicing coaches but still seems to be undiscovered by the general public.
It is called a Wheel of Life.
Grab a pencil and a piece of paper and let’s begin.
So, what is the Wheel of Life?
The Wheel of Life is a self-assessment tool that will help you to get a big picture of what is going on in your life. Draw a circle and divide it into 8 sectors. This is what it looks like:
Once you finished drawing the circle, self-assess each sector of your life by giving it a value on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “complete dissatisfaction” and 10 being “awesome”.
Mark the value of each sector and shade the sector. Be brutally honest with yourself when you assess each sector.
Now, let’s take a look at each sector one by one:
1. Health.
In this sector you assess:
- The way you feel in your body
- Appearance (the way you look)
- Mobility (how much you move throughout the day)
- Mental health
- Mood
- Energy
- Nutrition
- Regime
- Exercise
- Sleep
2. Relationships.
How satisfied and fulfilled are you with the quality of your primary relationships in life?
- The relationship with your partner (or lack of them)
- The relationships with your family/parents
- Your Inner Circle
- Friends
- Coworkers
- Community
3. Environment.
Your physical environment includes your:
- The geographical location (country/city)
- The political and macroeconomic situation in the country
- Secondary relationships (relatives, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbors, opponents, enemies)
4. Career.
How satisfied are you with the work you do for a living?
- Job/role
- Company/Company culture
- Career development
- Your own business
- Side-hustle
- Time investment into your work
- Work/Life balance
- Social status
- Impact on the world
- Fulfillment/Sense of meaning
5. Money.
How happy are you with your financial situation?
- Income, expenses, savings, investments
- Financial security/confidence
- All the things that money can buy you
6. Personal growth.
Do you have enough time for self-development? How satisfied are you with your personal growth?
- Education
- Training & Development
- Qualification improvement
- Special skills training
- Coaching
- Self-development / Self-improvement
- Reading
- Skill acquisition
- Specific knowledge acquisition
7. Brightness of life.
How bright is your life? How emotionally charged your life is? What are the things that you want to do to emotionally charge your life?
- Traveling
- Entertainment
- Relaxation
- Hobbies
- Impressions
- Food/Restaurants
- Adventure
8. Spiritual growth.
Do you dedicate enough time to grow spiritually? Do you express your spirituality in creativity? Do you follow a particular religion? What do you believe in?
- Meditation
- Religion
- Spiritual practices (prayers, mantras, yoga, etc.)
- Belief system
- Creativity (art, dancing, music, etc.)
Take your time and carefully finish your wheel of life. Pin the paper to the wall in the visible place. Let’s meditate on it.
Things to think about
- The sectors where you scored the lowest require the most attention. The tension that you might be feeling in your life comes from underdeveloped sectors of life.
- You can probably tell why they are placed in a particular order. Health is the foundation. If you have good health, you can build good relationships. Good relationships are created in good environments. The most important environment is the one where you are building your career. Do well in your career and the money will come. You make enough money you can invest in your personal growth and upscaling your lifestyle i.e. making your life brighter. Lastly, if you are well-developed in all previous sectors, you start thinking about some serious matters — your spirituality, your life philosophy, and the meaning of life.
- First, aspire to make your wheel as uniform as possible. Think of the Wheel of Life as the wheels on your car as you progress in your journey on earth. Not round wheels = bumpy ride.
- Second, once you have developed uniformity and made your Wheel of Life as round as possible start building it up to increase the size. Big wheels = big ride :)
- You don’t need to have a huge action plan. Ask yourself: “What are the 3 small things I can do today to build up the underdeveloped sectors?” Start doing something. Everything you need will reveal itself on the way.
- Build systems. To grow the Health sector — block the time to exercise. To grow Relationships — block Quality time with your loved ones. To grow Money — block the time to work on your business. Etc.
Thank you for reading my book “Meditations of the Millennial”.
If you want to support me on my mission, please, share this book with someone you love. Maybe they will find what they seek on its pages.
