Wheel of Life: a sure-fire way for leaders to achieve vital balance at work and in life

How to use this leadership tool to put energy, focus and effort where it’s needed most.

Balance. It’s such a soothing, peaceful word. And it’s an absolute necessity to experience a happy and fulfilling existence. When was the last time you were within that space of harmony, stability, and serenity? Would you like to be calm and in control, but don’t know where to even begin to balance out the areas that need some attention?

To achieve our goals and feel truly fulfilled, we must create a sustainable balance that involves all areas that make up our life. Stress, anxiety, loneliness, obsessive behaviours, lack of exercise, or financial worries are all prompters that there are elements in our life that require attention. We must create a balance that we can love, live and breathe. The Wheel of Life can help us think about each area and figure out how it might be off-balance.

The Wheel of Life?(originally created by Paul J. Meyer at the Success Motivation Institute)?has 8 sections or dimensions for areas that are important to us, for example:

1. Health & Wellbeing
2. Family / Partner
3. Leadership
4. Finances
5. Personal Growth
6. Friendships
7. Hobbies & Interests
8. Spirituality

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Since the focus for this article is on leadership, we can also explore different areas on our Wheel of Leadership with 9 dimensions representing the qualities and core skills of a well-rounded, human-centred leader:

1. Personal effectiveness
2. Emotional Intelligence
3. Effective communication
4. Interpersonal skills
5. Conflict management
6. Customer Service
7. Presentation skills
8. Managing change
9. Empowering others

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A wheel in perfect harmony looks like this; each dimension rated at 100% satisfaction, filled to the rim to create a wheel that provides us with a smooth ride on our life path.

As much as we'd like to roll our windows down, activate cruise control, and feel the wind in our hair on the freeway, our wheel’s eight areas are very rarely aligned, so our drive typically turns into a bumpy one, possibly even on unsealed back roads.

It is important to draw up and rate your own wheel. Once you have a visual representation of your wheel(s), the next step to find a new balance is to take a look at the gaps, or more specifically the areas with low scores and satisfaction levels. To inflate these sections of your wheel, you need to take action. There might even be areas that require a little too much of your energy and enthusiasm which could be redirected elsewhere.

How would you feel if you could make your wheel rounder? Wouldn’t that create smoother and more enjoyable travels? Imagine putting your energy, focus and effort into the areas that matter most to you. What would be different? How would your career or life look and feel then?

The Wheel of Life and Wheel of Leadership are fantastic tools to identify the areas that you want to work on and visualise where you currently are and where you would like to be. You can use them as a preparation for goal setting or professional development, and if you keep a record, you can monitor the changes to the wheel over time.

So, how will you transform this knowledge and desire for a balanced wheel into action steps? What is one change that you can make today to balance your wheel and smoothen your ride?

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Next steps to achieve balance in your work and life:

1. Print this article and use the first two wheels as a template
2. Use an app – there are several Life Wheel/Goals apps available for free or premium versions (we like ‘Life Wheel: Smart Goal Tracker’ or ‘Life Wheel’ by permamapp.com)
3. Do-it-yourself: draw a large circle, divide it into 8 pie slices, and name each section as per our example
4. Assess, on a scale of 1-10, each area with regards to the amount of attention you devote to this area, the result you currently get and how satisfied you feel. Mark each score on the appropriate spoke of your wheel, join the marks and shade or colour the area to create a visual representation.
5. Enrol into the free e-Learning module of 'Raising personal effectiveness ' at Global Leadership Hub | eLearning to learn more about how you can balance your wheel(s) and achieve vital balance in your work and life.

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This article was first published on the PROfound Leadership website