The Wheel of Life-Powerful Tool to balance your Life

One of my favorite tools in coaching is the wheel of life.

It's actually the first coaching activity I ever did myself when I was

being coached, And, it's also a very popular one and there's a reason

for it because it gives you a graphical representation of your life.

It can be very helpful especially because a lot of people learn better

and see better when they are looking at something visual.

The goal of the wheel of life is to help evaluate the balance of

different areas of your life and identify areas that aren't being

fulfilled to the level that you want.

For every area that you are evaluating, you will rate your

satisfaction and fulfillment in that area of life on a scale of 1 to 10.

What you're doing is you're taking them and you're putting them

into a pie chart, like this one below.

Step 1:Setting the picture of your Wheel of Life

These eight sections in the Wheel of Life represent different aspects

 of your life. Seeing the center of the wheel as 1 and the outer edges

 as 10, rank your level of satisfaction with each life area by filling

 in that piece of the pie to that level.

You can use the 8 categories in this sample or determine the 6 to 12

 most important categories in your life and create your own wheel.

The eight categories that are commonly used are career, money,

 health, significant other, friends and family, personal growth, fun

 and recreation, and physical environment.

What you're doing is you're plotting those on this pie chart.

And then again, for each one. you're scaling on a 1 to 10.

If zero is in the middle and 10 is completely fulfilled over here. For

 each one, you're going to fill in as much of the wheel inside of that

 section that you feels is appropriate for how you feel about your

 life.

What's going to happen is you're going to have some that are full

 and you're going to have some that are part way and in the end, 

was going to end up happening when you go to interpret this is the

 question to ask is, how bumpy would my life be if this was truly a

 wheel?

That's why the goal is to have them balanced. So that when it's

 rolling, you're not having this tumultuous up and down.

When somebody is fulfilled in one area, but completely abandoning

 another area, their life is going to be a much more rocky

 experience. Where even if everything's not exactly even, because

 you wouldn't necessarily want it to.

Because some areas are more important than others, if they're all a

 lot closer, the ride is

 much smoother .That is the theory behind the wheel of life.

Step 2: Interpreting your score 

One thing to look for when you're interpreting the scores is if you

 have certain areas that are very low. Then, you know that those are

 obvious places to look to come up with what goals you have.

But at the same time, you really want to look at how the different

 categories interplay, because one area might be low and you might notice another area low and there might be a link there.

Here are some questions and information you might take into

 consideration when interpreting your Wheel:

1.If this were a real wheel, how bumpy would the ride be? What

 you are aiming for with your completed wheel is to have all

 segments scored evenly (or close), above 7 and as near 10 as

 possible.

2 .If you have any particularly low scores you will want to make

 those areas of your life a priority.

However, it’s not always cut and dry. It is necessary to investigate

 how they may interact with each other in order to identify the area

 to address first.

For example, Fun & Recreation scored low could be tied to a low

 score regarding Money. Not having sufficient money could mean

 that a person may be unable to go out or engage in recreation that

 has an appreciable cost associated with it, which can lead to a low

 level of morale and lack of desire to have fun. A low score for

 Money could also be tied to the low score for Career, though it

 may be that money is low due to poor financial management.

The purpose here is to determine if a low score in one category is

 the result of other factors.

Improvement in one area will have an impact on other areas as

 well. At the same time, making changes in one area may have

 temporary or long term impact on other areas. However, in the

 above example, a career change may help in the career, money and

 fun categories. Yet, at the same time, depending on the situation it could decrease time for fun or family or your significant other.

Questions to Determine Goals

Now that you can see what areas of your life would be good

 coaching topics, use the following questions to dig deeper and

 uncover your desired outcomes and what you can do to improve

 your balance:

• Have you ever been higher than the number you have recorded?

• What was actually happening when you were higher up the scale?

• Have you ever been lower than the number you have recorded?

• What did you do to move up the scale?

• What have you learnt from previously being lower on the scale?

• What number on the scale do you want to be?

• What exactly do you want?

• What actions can you take to start moving up the scale?

• What will you be like when you have achieved this?

• What will be the impact of achieving this on other areas of your

 life?

• How will achieving this affect others close to you?

• What will achieving this bring you that you want?

• What will achieving this bring you that you don't want?

• What skills do you already have that will assist you in achieving this?

• What skills do you want to gain that will assist you in achieving this?

• Where can you learn these skills?

• What other options do you have?

• What would need to happen for you to move up one point on the scale by this time next week?

Use the answers to these questions to develop your plan and action steps. 

This is really a great activity and I  highly encourage you using it and I do hope you have fun with it.

Yours,

Dijana M.