Wheel of Life: Finding balance

We live in a fast-paced world. As busy people, it’s so easy for us to get caught up in a cycle of jumping from one task to another without taking time to look at the bigger picture. This is how the focuses of our attention can end up misaligned with what’s genuinely important to us.

WhAT IS THE WHEEL OF LIFE?

The Wheel of Life is a tool you can use to create a well-considered visual representation of where you’re currently directing your attentions versus where you’d ideally be directing them. It helps you see any unbalance in your current situation so you can set goals that address it.

How TO CREATE YOUR WHEEL OF LIFE

It’s easy to create your Wheel of Life. All it takes is some time and reflection.

Step 1: Identify categories

Download our Wheel of Life worksheet here

Create a list of up to ten areas in life where you spend most of your time. Categories might include:

• Career – not only time spent at work, but time devoted to achieving career goals, professional development and study.
• Leisure – time spent doing things you enjoy, simply because you enjoy them, like hobbies and sport.
• Social – the attention you pay to friendships, not only seeing friends in person but also communicating with them.
• Family – are you spending enough/too much time on family matters (you can split this into immediate/extended family if relevant)?
• Finances – your level of financial wellbeing and ability to manage money without it controlling your day-to-day living.
• Health and fitness – are you looking after your body, sleeping well and getting regular medical checks?

Use your list of categories to label spokes in your wheel. Each spoke becomes one category.

Step 2: Evaluate your current situation versus your ideal

First up, carefully assess how much attention you’re giving to each category. Give it a mark out of ten with 0 being the least and ten being the most.

Example: You barely see your friends and regularly have to turn down invitations due to other commitments. You might score this 2/10.

Mark each score on the corresponding spoke of the wheel. Once you have all of the scores marked, you can connect the dots. This represents your current situation.

Then, in a different colour, mark on the wheel the scores you’d like to achieve in each category. This represents your ideal situation.

Example: You’d like to prioritise your friends a lot more, so you score 8/10

NB: Some categories will have higher scores than others because we each have different things that are important to us, so it’s normal for the wheel not to be perfectly round.

Step 3: Reflect

You now have your own Wheel of Life. You can use it to see where there are gaps that need more focus and where you need to pull some of your attention away. It will also help you to see connections between different areas. Once you’ve reflected on your Wheel of Life, you can set goals to achieve more balance and set you up for happiness and success.

Step 4: Action

On the following page, take some time to reflect on how you currently feel about these areas of your life by listing 1-3 goals. By doing so, you can gain valuable insights and make adjustments as needed to help you achieve a more balanced and fulfilling life. Tick once completed.