The Wheel of Life--A Coaching Exercise with Big Results!

One of the life coaching tools we use for goal-setting in our coaching practice is the Wheel of Life exercise.  This is used by many coaches to help guide clients to lead a more balanced, authentic, and fulfilling life for themselves.  It's a great tool for motivating people to succeed and to help find a work-life balance that is reflective of your own needs.  This is also an exercise used in my books on Transforming Divorce and in the Transforming Divorce Course.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the exercise, the Wheel of Life has 8 categories:  

1. career
2. health
3. family and friends
4. money and finances
5. fun and recreation
6. romance and loving yourself
7. personal growth
8. physical environment

If you'd rather substitute other categories, you are free to do so--this is your wheel that represents your life.

Each of these categories are assessed on a scale of 0 (unsatisfied) to 10 (highly satisfied).  When you finish rating how you feel about each area of your life, you then plot the numbers on the spokes of the wheel and then connect them together.  When you're done, you will have a picture of how your life is working in each of the different areas.  If you're like most people, your wheel is lop-sided.  Some areas are 10's or close to them; some might be 0's or close to that.  If you do the exercise you'll notice that some areas need more attention than others.  This is not a time to beat yourself up over the areas that are not enhancing your life at the moment.  This exercise is a wake-up call that there are aspects of your life that have not been nurtured by you and they simply need more focus.  If you have all 10's--Fantastic!  You don't need to read any further!  See ya next week!

The Wheel of Life exercise is an excellent tool that coaches use with their clients to help take inventory of those areas of life that need some nurturing and attention.  I (Nicole) recommend--and I am a big proponent of--not just focusing on those areas that need some work, but also on those areas that have been scored higher and are going well for you.  For example, if you scored high in health but not so great in relationships, I advocate working on the relationships aspect of your life, but also maintaining the health sector.  This may sound laborious, after all, it's hard enough to get one, two, or three aspects up to 9's or 10's.  How do you get all or most of them up there?  My answer:  it's a habit.  It takes motivation, determination, and an eye toward your goals.  If it were easy, most of the population would be attaining great levels of success.  They aren't.  Here's where you don't have to follow the crowd or fall into complacency.  If you make it a goal to make your Wheel of Life all 9's and 10's how do you think you'd feel, say a week or a month from now?  How do you think your life would be different?  Think it can't happen?!  It won't if you think that way.

This exercise and many others are available on the internet and in bookstores everywhere.  You can purchase them or get them for free.  Material that helps you to fully actualize your life is available NOW for you to use to create a better life, but many people don't have the direction, the determination, the motivation, or the strength to follow through.  Let me rephrase that--many people THINK they don't have the direction, the determination, the motivation, or strength to follow through.  Sometimes these attributes need to be brought out by a coach or a therapist.  You can be living a better life--starting today, but if you are lacking direction, guidance, determination, support, motivation, strength, or inspiration you will find it difficult to pursue anything in life short of just going through the motions each and every day.  If your wheel doesn't have high scores in each category, ask yourself why not?  Why are you holding yourself back?  Imagine for a minute what it would be like to live a life that was fulfilling in ALL areas of life.  Imagine being successful, as you define success, in ALL areas of life.  Think that can't happen?  I know it can because I live it.  Think it can't happen to you?  If I can do it, you can too!  You are too valuable to sit on the sidelines of life, watching the game instead of participating in it.  Get out there!  Live a life you love!

*This exercise was recently featured on our show Living Well which airs each Wednesday at 7 pm on Cablevision channel 20.

*Check out our new site insynchypnosis.com.  We use the latest in Brain Wave Entrainment for maximum personal growth.  Our downloads include Smoking Cessation, Happiness, Abundance, Hypnosis for Weight Loss, and Affirmations for Prosperity and Abundance.

*We have 2 new videos which use the Brain Wave Entrainment.  Find them at insynchypnosis.com or on youtube.