Also known as the Wheel of Balance, originally created by Paul J Meyer.

The wheel is a wonderful tool you can easily use while reflecting on different aspects of your life as well as personal goals and objectives you would like to focus on. It allows individuals to have an overview screenshot into their lives from different angles.

My first personal experience with the tool was in 2017 during a personal development workshop which was delivered by a colleague of mine at the time. I remember the surprise to my self-ratings in the areas of my life. What was more surprising was that none of the ratings I gave myself were new or I didn’t know about already, but when put all together it started to draw a picture of the current state of my life. The biggest take away for me at the time was I knew there were things in my life that needed my attention.

The Wheel of Life tool is commonly used in the world of coaching and can be a very helpful tool in helping a coachees define their goals they would like to work on by selecting the areas most meaningful to them.

Usually, the wheel consists of 8 main areas of balance or aspects of your life that you would like to assess and reflect on. It’s easy to resonate with the defined 8 focuses and areas as seen in the image above, but feel free remove or to add other focus areas that mean more to you in your life such as creativity, hobbies, community, etc.  

What’s great about this tool is that it isn’t your ordinary self-assessment. The concept behind the Wheel of Life is to ensure that you are giving a fair amount of focus in all aspects in your life and making them aligned with one another.

Why do we do this and what’s the purpose? Well, the overall goal and objective isn’t something new or farfetched, we all want to live in fulfilment and happiness and this tool can help us figure out what needs our attention to achieve it.  

Not your ordinary self-assessment!

The way to use the tool is very simple and easy. For the first step I would recommend dedicating some uninterrupted time to yourself where you really are able to reflect and give an honest assessment on the areas in your life.

All you need is to draw a circle and begin to add your areas of focus and what matters most to you. Next you will want to rate each area with a numerical representation. Either in percentages from 0 to 100% or a 10-scale rating will do just the same. Its important you answer honestly and remember this piece of exercise is important to you and is reflective to your opinions.

Once you complete your ratings, spend some time to work on a few questions to help give you a better understanding of your reflections:

1.  Start with the positives by asking yourself

“What are you happy with?”

2. It’s also key to acknowledge your initial not so positive self-reflection in the picture by simply asking

“What surprises you? What stood out the most to you?”

3. Point out what needs your immediate focus. If there is more than one, start first with your most valued area. For some it might be family and spending quality time, others might have a priority focus on their financial aspirations. The goal is to identify which of the areas you wanna begin to work towards.

“Which area would you most like to make a change?

4. Throughout this self-reflection process always remember your feelings. your feelings must be addressed and recognized. There is no plan and strategy to your goal without the recognition and acceptance of how you feel at the moment and how you would want to feel from the results of your action plan.

 “How do you feel about your rating/score in this particular area? And what would you like to have seen it in?”

5. Connect the dots. Your wheel is speaking to you, and it can help you link the areas that complement one another, if out of alignment it can also identify the ones that have a negative impact to one another, for example your health if scored in the lower range can be connected to your performance at work rating.

“What connections do you see between your wheel and your goals?”

6. The most important question and can only be answered in honestly is

“How well are you living your purpose and values, based on this picture?

The overall objective is to live a happy, healthy, balanced, and fulfilling life. We can’t do that if we don’t understand what our focuses in life are and where we stand in each one.

I hope you found this helpful and you’re able to dedicate sometime to your own development and self-reflection. Please feel free share your experience and feedback in the comment sections below.

Mona