Ironing out more bumps with the Wheel of Life

Last week I introduced you to the coaching tool called “The Wheel of Life”. You can read that blog here.

The Wheel of Life helps you to identify aspects or sections of your life that you are not happy with. So, what is your Wheel of Life telling you? Where are the bumps and how can you iron them out?

Scored of 8 or above

This is brilliant news. Any section with a score of 8 or more means that you are very satisfied with this particular area of your life. Don’t get too complacent though. You’re doing a great job and you want to keep doing a great job. Make sure you don’t neglect these sections whilst you are nurturing other areas of your life. You may also want to consider if there are still potential for improvement. Working on improving something that is already bringing you satisfaction is a great way to improve your motivation if some of your other changes are being more of a challenge.

Scored between 5 and 7

You are reasonably satisfied with these sections of your life. However, there is definitely room for improvement. On option with changes to these areas is to “dovetail” them between bigger changes that you are making. You work on a big change for a while. Get to a point where you can safely stop. Then you work on a change in one of these “mid-range” sections. The changes may be slightly easier to implement or may bring faster benefits. By alternating the sections that you work on in this way you stop yourself from getting bored, frustrated or overwhelmed by focusing on one area of your life for too long. Look at it as adding from “light and shade” to the process.

Scored 4 or less

These are the sections where you feel little or no satisfaction. However, the Wheel of Life is not about blame or guilt so DO NOT FEEL DOWN about these sections. Look at them as areas of opportunity and even hope. Now that you have identified that theses areas need some TLC you can start nurturing them. That is a HUGE step forward from not being aware that TLC was needed. You also often find that the smallest of changes can bring huge benefits. This is especially true if this aspect of your life has been neglected or ignored for a while. They are also the areas where you can grow most and reap the most rewards as you explore opportunities that are now presenting themselves.

Next steps

Now that you’ve analyzed your Wheel of Life you need to work out your first steps towards change.

The following questions will help you plan your strategy.

To being with you need to start prioritising which sections to work on first. It can be overwhelming to make changes to too many areas of your life in one go. If there are only couple of sections that are causing the “bumps” in your life this is not so important. However, if more than three sections need improving, then prioritisation is important.

Wheel of Life questions

What surprised you most about your Wheel of Life?
How do you feel about your life as you look at your Wheel?
Which of three sections would you most like to improve?

For each of the three areas ask the following questions:

What is my ideal score for each section to achieve in the next month, 3 months, 6 months, one year?
What would it take to make the section score a 10?
If a 10 seems too far out of reach, what would it take to make the section score a 5?
What would a 10 (or 5) look and/or feel l
How do you currently spend time in this section?
What would enable you to spend more time in this section?
How could you make space/time for these changes in your life?
What support or help do you need from other people as you make these changes?
What change should you make first?
How does this make you feel?
What change do you want to make first?
How does this make you feel?
Which change(s) would make the biggest positive impact?
If there was one key action you could take that would begin to bring everything into balance, what would it be?
What little step could you take today to start you moving forward?
How committed are you to taking that step? (1 to 10 with 10 being the highest)
What is your next step?

The unbalanced wheel

When making changes it can be beneficial to make lots of small improvements across all the sections. While this may mean it takes more time to achieve a 10 score it can make for a less bumpy transition. The changes implemented which feel less bumpy if you get all sections to score a 5 or 6 before improving the sections to increase them to a 6 or 7 and then a 7 or 8.

There is also a danger of becoming extremely satisfied in one aspect of your life. This is often done at high cost to one or more of the other areas. It is all well and good being very satisfied with your job and improving your finances. However, is it worth it if your relationships suffer as a result. All work and no play makes Jack (or Jacquie) unhappy and less satisfied with life no matter how many pennies they have in the bank.

The key here is balance. You need to do this in a way that nurtures and grows all sections of your life rather than trading one off against another. It’s about moving forward, challenging yourself, pushing your boundaries, exploring new opportunities that expand and improve your life while maintaining a balance. In other words, it’s about Creating A New, Beautiful And Courageous Existence.

It’s also about revisiting and rechecking on a regular basis. As we know everything changes even when we are not proactively doing anything to instigate change. This means it’s worthwhile performing the Wheel of Life exercise every six months. Regular checks help you to identify times when satisfaction is not as great as it used to be. Prevention is better than cure, and if not prevention then early identification helps minimize the problems.

I’ve been doing my Wheel of Life over the last few days. Now that Andrew has identified his three core values, we need to explore what this means to our joint vision for the future. My core values haven’t changed over the last five years: however, Andrew and I are a partnership, so everything needs to be assessed jointly before decisions are made.

Practice makes perfect

It’s all well and good writing about things in theory: however, we need to start applying what we learn. Use the questions above to delve more deeply you’re your Wheel of Life. If you haven’t completed your Wheel of Life yet you can download the template and instructions here. My blog introducing the Wheel of Life if here. You can read Andrew’s blog about values here.

To help you keep track of all your work for the daily activities mentioned, we have created a Monthly Diary for you to record your progress. To download your copy of “My February Canbace Diary” please click here.

Be kind to yourself …

In CANBACE friendship!

If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, please let me know. I will keep your words private.