Taking stock using the Wheel of Life

As the year is coming to an end, it is customary to do two things: take stock of what we are leaving behind, and celebrate the Holidays. ? I’d love to share a nifty tool with you, which I often use in my coaching and which is a fabulous and easy exercise to take stock. Many of you might already have seen or used it. But this isn’t something that should be used only once: it’s one of those awareness tools that we should always keep in our back pockets and regularly pull out – especially at a time where pausing and taking a look back is helpful. It is called:

The Wheel of Life

The wheel of life divides life into 8 categories:

1. Physical environment (which is the environment in which we live most of the time: our house, our neighborhood, the geography of where we live (town/country, ocean/mountain/flat, county/state/country etc.), the weather, the commutes, etc.)
2. Business/career: everything that constitutes our work (paid and unpaid – this would include any volunteer work. This also includes studying).
3. Finances: what is our financial situation?
4. Health: physical and mental
5. Family and friends: I often propose to my clients to sub-divide this slice in two, and make one half the family slice and the other the friends. I find that very often those two can’t really be mashed into one for evaluation.
6. Romance: our love/intimate life
7. Personal growth (often called “spiritual and personal growth”): our state of learning and growing yourself, and how we feel about our spiritual life.
8. Fun and recreation: speaks for itself. How much fun and play do we have in our life?

Each slice has a scale: From 0 - this is the lowest one could rank themselves on any of the dimensions. For example if I was single, hated being single, and was failing at meeting someone, which I would resent, I might rank myself at a zero on romance. To 10 – this is the highest one can rank themselves on. For example if I was completely satisfied with the state of my finances (I earn an excellent and fair salary with great benefits, I have solid savings for both emergencies and the future, I have a nest egg invested which is doing great, I am almost done paying off my apartment), I might rank my finances at a 10.

How to use the wheel

Rank ourselves, for the present moment in time where we are doing the exercise, on this scale of 0 to 10, for each one of the 8 life dimensions. It’s often helpful to very spontaneously choose a number at first (without over thinking), and then reflect on why we picked that number: really tell ourselves in detail why we are choosing the number we are choosing.

This is the part of the exercise that really helps us to “take stock”. ? This is what a filled out wheel might look like:

During a second pass, go back through each dimension and decide where would we ideally like to be? Sometimes we are just where we need to be and we don’t feel like we need to change anything. For example if we feel our health is pretty solid at an 8 – we are physically and mentally taking good care of ourselves and feeling like we are just where we need to be and don’t feel like we need to change anything, then this ranking can stay just where it is. But all too often, there will be some dimensions where we are not where we want to be. We would then decide what a preferred ranking would be for the given dimension, and think though what would need to happen, and what steps we need to take, to improve the ranking to its desired state. In order to just take a look back and sit in awareness, doing round 1 of this exercise might be enough. Round 2 might be something to tackle as part of the New Year’s resolutions … To be continued!

A printable version of The Wheel of Life is available in the free resource section of my website, under the heading 'Balance'.

For now, after we have taken a moment to reflect back on our year, let’s just sit back, relax, and enjoy the Holiday time!

May you feel the most beautiful things of the season with your heart – and may your heart be full of blessings and peace as you celebrate the joy of the season!

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