Is Your Life Balanced or Unbalanced?
You can find out by completing a Wheel of Life.
A Wheel of Life is sliced into 8 sections and each section represents different areas that are important in many people’s lives.
The most common areas are:
- Business & career
- Finance
- Health
- Family & friends
- Romance
- Personal development
- Fun & recreation
- Contribution to society
You can split the categories into two, change the names to make it more reflective of your life or leave the areas out altogether.
Each section has a value of 1 (very bad) in the centre to 10 (very good) at the outer edge.
By concentrating on the section and coming up with a number between 1 and 10 that reflects your current situation you can get a picture of how balanced your life is right now.
Once you have a number for the category/section, you join the two sides of the segment with a straight line. You will generate a spider-web picture which will give you at a glance, which categories are less than satisfying. The lower the number, the more improvement that category could use.
When considering what you would score each category there are several considerations. Here are some of the more obvious.
1. Business & career
Is your job what you imagined or would you rather be doing something else? Are you happy and satisfied doing what you do? Can you live on the money you are making?
2. Finance
Can you meet your basic needs and the other needs in your life with your present income? Do you depend on loans to see you through? Is your debt load too high?
3. Health
Are you mentally and physically healthy? Is your weight and appearance acceptable to you? Do you feel okay or are you in discomfort a lot of the time? Do you play sports?
4. Family and Friends
Are your friends supportive and trustworthy? How much time do you spend with friends With family?
5. Romance
Have you found happiness and love with your partner, spouse or significant other? Is your partner committed to helping you?
6. Personal Development
Are you open and ready to learn personally? How is your spiritual growth?
7. Fun and recreation
Do you have hobbies or practice sports? Do you enjoy life? What do you do on your free time.
8. Contribution
Do you volunteer and help others? Are you an active member of sports clubs or neighbourhood events? Do you take care of family?
Once completed, the resulting spider-web will show you any surprises or peaks and valleys in your life.
You can interpret your scores in each area by using the following suggestion:
8 to 9 – very satisfied. You need to maintain this level but there is still room for some improvement.
5 to 7 – reasonably satisfied. You will need to improve if you want to achieve your goals in this segment.
1 to 4 – not happy about this area in your life. You will really need to find ways to improve in this area.
All of these scores provide opportunities for growth.
You can ask yourself the following to reflect on your scores in each segment.
- Why did you score yourself low in this category?
- What is your ideal category score?
- What score would you like to achieve in this category in 3, 6 or 12 months?
- What categories are important to you to achieve balance?
The completed Wheel of Life is a starting point in understanding how balanced your life is now. You can be extremely satisfied in one area and not so satisfied in another.
You may spend all of your time in your career, which will positively impact your finances but you may be less than satisfied with your relationships with your friends, family and partner. This can also impact your health and well-being scores.
You can find your balance in life by connecting all segments. The Wheel of Life can help you by showing you what type of balance, or out of balance, you are currently living in. When you look at your Wheel of Life, you can see what areas you need to expand and grow in.
You can now set goals in those areas of your life that have a less than satisfying score.
You should complete the Wheel of Life a couple of times ever year to see how you are progressing in achieving balance.
You can download your blank Wheel of Life exercise below.
Once you have completed it you can send it to me (michael@coachmichaelw.com) and I will review it and give you feedback on what you could do to make the wheel a little smoother.
To your success
Michael
P.S. If you would like to book a 45-minute, no obligation “Get to know you” call just click on the blue button below.
We can discuss the Wheel of Life, Confidence, Success, Empowerment and many other aspects that could help you to live the best year of your life starting now.