The life wheel is a tool that many life coaches use to learn more about their clients. Of course, it also helps the client learn more about themselves. Let’s try it.
Take a look at the life wheel image and think about what success or satisfaction would feel like for each area on the wheel. The eight areas on the wheel together should create a view of a balanced life for you. Of course, not everyone’s life is exactly the same, so you can split category segments to add in something that you feel is missing, or re-label an area to make it more meaningful to you. These are examples of changes you might want to make:
- Family and Friends: Split “Family and Friends” into separate categories.
- Significant Other: The category name could change to “Dating”, “Relationship” or “Life Partner”.
- Career: The category name could change to “Motherhood”, “Work”, “Business” or “Volunteering”.
- Finances: The category name could change to “Money”, “Financial Security” or “Financial Wellbeing”.
- Health: The category name could be split or changed to “Emotional”, “Physical”, “Fitness”, “Spiritual” or “Wellbeing”.
- Home Environment: The category could split to include “Work Environment”.
- Fun & Leisure: The category name could change to “Recreation”
- Personal Growth: The category name could change to “Learning”, “Self-Development” or “Spiritual”
- Other categories to add could include “Security”, “Service”, “Leadership”, “Achievement” or “Community”.
Now, following these instructions, rank your current level of satisfaction with each area of your life:
1. Review the 8 Wheel Categories – think briefly what a satisfying life might look like for you in each area.
2. Next, draw a line across each segment that represents your satisfaction score for each area.
- Imagine the center of the wheel is 0 and the outer edge is 10
- Choose a value between 1 (very dissatisfied) and 10 (fully satisfied)
- Now draw a line and write the score alongside (see example above)
IMPORTANT: Use the FIRST number (score) that pops into your head, not the number you think it should be!
If you want to dig deeper, these are great questions to ask yourself after you’ve completed the exercise:
- Are there any surprises for you?
- How do you feel about your life as you look at your wheel?
- How do you currently spend time in these areas? How would you like to spend time in these areas?
- What would a score of 10 look like for each area?
- Which of these categories would you most like to improve?
- How can you make space for these changes in your life?
- What help and support might you need from others to make changes and be more satisfied with your life?
- What change should you make first? And what change do you want to make first?
- If there was one key action you could take that would begin to bring everything into balance, what would it be?
So … how’s your life?
Ron Richardson 