Using the Wheel of Life: A Guide to When and How It Can Transform Your Goals

Sometimes you can feel lost in your own life where you know you want to change something but not sure what because life is so busy and chaotic. You are surviving from day to day with no time to take stock and think. You know you aren’t enjoying parts of life, but you can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what is wrong as it is all tainted by the same feeling. If all of that resonates then the Wheel of life would be the tool I used in our coaching sessions.

What is a wheel of life?

In its simplest form it’s just a circle on a page. I love it because it’s a simple tool that you don’t require anything special to use making it flexible and easy whenever needed.

It’s a great method of being able to breakdown your life and analysing what areas aren’t working as well.

It’s a well-known and well-used tool, if you’d like to read more about its origins you can here.

When is a good time to use one?

It’s a tool you can use on your own or with support. It’s great If you are feeling like want to change but not quite sure what element of your life you need to change.

It works well if you are feeling a little overwhelmed and lost in your own life, too busy with the everyday motions of life to make changes, it’s just what you need.

Interestingly it’s also perfect if you want to examine an element of your life in a deeper manner so instead of rating all areas of your life you can break down just one into smaller chunks. More about this later.

Using a Wheel of Life

1.     Think of what makes up your life, how your life is grouped; finances, family, work etc whatever works for you. Don’t worry too much if you forget a topic because you can always add later or make another wheel.

2.     Draw a circle and divide the wheel into segments, reflecting the number of topics you identified in 1. Or you can use a pre-made wheel like this.

3.     Now score each segment 1-10 on the wheel, it’s important to be honest with yourself, remember whatever the score, it’s okay, it’s just your paper and it’s easy to throw away If you go wrong or score something lower than you’d admit to others.

4.     When you’ve scored what you want then you can start to analyse, use some of these questions to help:

• Are you happy with the scores

• Does the wheel reflect how you feel about life

• What would make it a 10?   

• What happens if nothing changes?

Here are a few things to consider with your results 

1.     There is no end game with the wheel, you aren’t winning at life if you make every segment a 10, there is no prize. Rarely are people scoring 10’s all the time, perfection isn’t the aim.

 2.     Maybe trying to improve segments score a 10 feels too overwhelming right now. Instead, think what would improve your score by 1 point. Small steps are always more sustainable and easier to incorporate as a new habit.

 3.     Are there segments that need breaking down? Let’s assume you’ve scored work at a 4 and want to look at ways to improve the score. One way to do this is to focus the whole wheel on work and make each segment about a different element of work. Have a look at the diagram below.

4.     Do these scores accurately reflect how you feel. If you repeated the exercise every day for a week or every week for a month would the results, look the same? When looking at your results consider what created the change?

If you’d like to have a go at a Wheel of Life then I sell a template on my website that has everything you need to know to complete a Wheel of Life, interpret your results and capture your actions here. Additionally, there is a video on my Instagram page where you can watch me fill out a Wheel of Life.

Have you used a Wheel of Life before?