How balanced is your Wheel of Life?

Have you ever pondered how to infuse more meaning into your life? I can relate to that. A few years back, I was yearning to be happier and lead a more purposeful and fulfilling life, but I didn't know where to begin.

In an effort to find answers, I asked myself questions such as:

What do I genuinely enjoy doing?

What am I good at?

What are my core values?

What are my motivators?

While answering these questions helped me gain some clarity, it wasn't clear how to use the answers to these questions to improve my life – to feel happier and more satisfied.

That's when I discovered a tool that I found both reflective and actionable – the Wheel of Life. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry – most of my friends hadn't either, and that is the reason I wanted to share it here.

What is the Wheel of Life?

The Wheel of Life is a simple visual tool that can help us assess our current level of balance in different areas of our lives. It is based on the idea that there are various dimensions to our lives, and neglecting any one of these can lead to an imbalanced life, resulting in stress, unhappiness, and a feeling of emptiness.

The wheel is typically divided into eight sections, each representing a different dimension of our lives that we value. There are various versions of the Wheel of Life; the one I created for myself is below.

You may not relate to what all of these areas represent. And that's okay – you can customize them to match your own values and priorities. Here's how I define the areas in my Wheel of Life with some alternative ideas for what else they could be for you:

• Area 1 – Environment: This pertains to our satisfaction with access to good air, water, food, housing, neighborhood, and safety. It is something that many of us may be satisfied with, but it's a reminder of the things we have that we often take for granted.
• Areas 2 & 3 – Relationships: This captures the feeling of belongingness and connection that is so crucial for humans. I split this into two categories for myself: family & friends, and partner. But you could also consider other aspects such as parenthood or community.
• Area 4 – Health: This reflects our satisfaction with our current physical and mental health, as well as the behaviors we're engaging in (or not engaging in) to maintain and improve our health – such as sleeping well, eating well, exercising, and managing stress in a helpful way.
• Area 5 – Work: This covers our satisfaction with our career or school. It could also include other activities you engage in, such as parenting or volunteering.
• Area 6 – Finances: This is our satisfaction with our financial situation. Some say you can never have enough money. But it is essential to realize how satisfied we are with the amount of money we have, so we know when to stop prioritizing it.
• Area 7 – Leisure: This covers our satisfaction with the recreational activities that we engage in to help ourselves relax and enjoy.
• Area 8 – Growth: This could cover things that make us feel we are growing personally, such as learning new things, being creative, and giving back.

How to build the Wheel of Life?

Creating the Wheel of Life is straightforward. We simply rate our current level of satisfaction in each area on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very dissatisfied and 10 being completely satisfied. Once we've rated each area, we connect the dots to create a visual representation of our wheel. A perfectly balanced wheel will look like a perfect circle, while an imbalanced wheel will be lopsided or uneven. Here is an example to illustrate this:

How is it actionable?

By ranking my satisfaction levels with each aspect of my life that I value, I can easily identify the areas of my life where I am already doing well and the ones I?need to pay more deliberate attention to.

As I do this, I almost always have an inner dialogue about why I am not satisfied with the aspects of my life that need the most improvement and what I wished I did more of. Writing down these thoughts automatically becomes a list of actionable next steps that I can take to improve the areas that I am less satisfied with.

How does this help when we are wondering how to make our life more meaningful? I believe we often ask these questions when we are not satisfied with at least one aspect of our life that we value – we may or may not know what it is consciously, but we know something is not quite right. This tool helps put into perspective the things that we value in life. It helps us realize what is already adding meaning to our lives, and what else we can do to feel happier and more fulfilled. It helps us figure out how to achieve balance in all the important areas of our life, which ultimately improves our wellbeing and helps us lead a more fulfilling life.

I have revisited my Wheel of Life every year since I started doing it to track my progress and adjust my goals as needed. It has helped me make changes in my life to get closer to having a balanced wheel in the future (yes, it doesn't happen overnight!). It has also helped me feel more satisfied and make trade-offs in my life with more certainty and confidence.

If you have read this far, I highly recommend giving the Wheel of Life a try today – whether on a piece of paper or your favorite drawing tool. It's a simple but powerful tool that can bring you closer to having a satisfying and fulfilling life.