The Wheel of Life is one of the most recognized coaching tool. It is extremely easy to use and can help one live one life to the fullest by quickly visualizing key areas in life that are out of balance.
Visualizing the Wheel of Life with a coach can help you focus on key areas that are out of balance on the wheel of life so you can make improvements where necessary. Curious about the life balance wheel and want to know more about this coaching assessment? We’ll explain all about it, how you can use it and how it can help you enjoy your life without compromises.
Although you can add or remove categories at your discretion depending on the client, or on your own life, a life balance wheel or wheel of life usually has eight categories. But you can add more or change the category names to suit the needs of a particular coaching session or client.
The usual categories found on a wheel of life are:
We have prepared an easy-to-use wheel of life pdf that will make your assessment much easier if you want to do it a class or offline. Just download the life balance pdf and populate it with what you feel.
The best way to fill your life balance wheel is to have minimal distractions around you. If you believe that gadgets are a distraction, it is best to get a printout of the wheel of life and do it in an environment free from distraction.
Before you begin, try to ground yourself in reality and have a candid conversation with yourself so that your wheel reflects the truth in present time. The life balance wheel assessment functions best when it is realistic and honest.
If you’d like to assess a coaching client and prepare a life balance wheel for them, just download our blank wheel of life template. It will allow you to modify all the aspects of the coaching wheel and even rebrand the pdf to suit your needs. The template can either be filled online, offline, or even after printing it out. Again, the best way to get your wheel of life filled is by doing it with minimum distractions. If you are a coach and in need of technical help building a web based life balance wheel, you might want to consider working hiring me as your consultant to help you innovate and execute a web based solution for your clients.
The life balance wheel can be used in multiple situations and is not just limited to life in general. The clarity found in visualizing what’s in balance and what’s out of balance is extremely helpful for most people; and the ability to track progress, key to personal growth.
By drawing arcs in every sector you create a ‘wheel’ that may or may not have a uniform circumference. A balanced circumference means that your life has balance and you are optimally managing everything. On the contrary, a bumpy one will exhibit the imbalance in your life that is pulling you back and is not letting you enjoy your life to the fullest.
Having such a bumpy wheel of life also means that your life is not headed in the right direction and corrective action is required. Working with a life/business coach can help bring out the best in yourself. It is good practice to redo the wheel of life assessment after a certain period of time to check whether there have been any improvements in the direction or not.
It is not just life that can be gauged using the life balance wheel, people have been using it to make simple decisions too. This is done in the same manner as a normal wheel of life but for making a particular decision you select the most appropriate options or priorities that are applicable to that particular decision. Again, this decision and the way it is affecting your life can be checked by drawing up the life balance wheel again. If there are no improvements or if the situation has deteriorated, it is best to seek the help of a professional coach.
The Wheel of life is a great tool that can be used in several productive ways. It has pivotal importance when it comes to the world of coaching. A coach needs to assess what his or her clients need and where their life is headed. The coaching wheel allows them to do just that, productively and simplistically. This tool not only gives them insight into where the client’s life is right now but will also help in gauging if it is making progress in the right direction throughout the coaching process.
This is particularly important with individuals that are unsure about why they need coaching in the first place. Prospective coaching clients might realize that they need help, yet asking for it or validating it can be challenging without a clear visual indicator calling out what they are feeling deep inside. In this scenario, the coaching wheel helps get an overview of the areas of the client’s life that need attention and bring them to life to start the right conversation necessary for growth. Also, the balance wheel helps set the targets and goals when the coach and client discuss expectations, desired outcomes, and the path to goal achievement. Goals are generally prioritized to make sure that the sectors which are causing the most dissatisfaction to the client are looked into and worked on alongside competing interests in our busy world.
Although the first use of the coaching wheel is to assess the level of satisfaction or the lack thereof, the subsequent wheel of life exercises actually help gauge progress and the effectiveness of coaching. Everyone should be allowed to enjoy their lives and the coaching wheel is the basic diagnostic tool designed to pinpoint the sources of stress or dissatisfaction.
If you’re coaching someone, it means you are working hard to bring out the best in your client and this involves helping them with basic as well as advanced decision making. To assist them in a constructive manner it is imperative that you fully understand the current situation they are in. Only then is a coach truly able to help someone. In addition, the life balance wheel can actually help you gauge the coach-client relationship. This assessment will allow for efficient management of the relationship as it ascertains whether the client’s life is heading in the intended direction or not.
Apart from the usual ways of using the wheel of life assessment, it can also be used to help the client envision their ‘perfect’ life. It helps start the progress towards a more fulfilling and content life even from the first meeting.
To benefit from the wheel of life, the wheel has to be assessed for the shortcomings and the areas of life that are bringing dissatisfaction. A bumpy or uneven wheel that you might have obtained with the wheel of assessment shows that you are not content with certain aspects of your life. Balancing your life and maintaining balance is key to a happy and fulfilling life.
The main aim of the wheel of life is to make you self-aware of your life and the way it is progressing right now. Becoming self-aware involves interpreting what you feel every day and taking cues from that.
Once you have filled the wheel of life, you have evaluated the current level of satisfaction that you attach to each aspect of your life, it is time that you start working on improving the ones that are causing you dissatisfaction.
If you did not assign a score of 5 or above to health that means you need to put in some extra effort and integrate active exercising into your routine. Moreover, if you’re obese there is a need for weight management and diet planning. Get enough sleep and eat a balanced diet to achieve the best health score on your wheel of life.
Finances and financial prosperity are something that everyone should be satisfied with. If your financials are not that satisfying you need to take some sort of corrective action. This can include but is not limited to, revisiting your expenses, resource management, money management, credit control, and getting financial advice from a business or personal coach.
If your career progression is not satisfactory it might be time to rethink about it and make amends. If your work-life is not giving you the required satisfaction it generally means you consider your time and effort wasted, this can be detrimental to one’s mental health and can consequently affect your physical health too. If you’re unsure about what to do, consult a coach or mentor.
Family and friends are what keep us satisfied. Love, in general, is what human beings live and work hard for. If you’re not deriving a high level of satisfaction from this sector, it is good to go back to the drawing board and list down the prime factors that are causing you dissatisfaction when it comes to family and friends. If your dealings with friends and family are very contrasting, it is recommended to split the two into distinct sections so that you can analyze and then manage them accordingly. Communication is the key for these two sections, as it is humans that we are dealing with and as with everything human, communication can make things much, much better.
The home/Work environment is one of the most common areas of stress and can push one into depression. If your score in this section is not satisfactory, try and list down the main issues that you have with these factors and take corrective action. If any of the factors are in your personal control then dealing with them will improve your life immediately. If some factors seem to be beyond your control but are causing you dissatisfaction, discussing them with the appropriate people outside of your home environment can help provide relief, enabling you to live your life to the fullest.
Self-development is one of the most important factors that help define success. If your wheel of life has an average score of self-development, you need to assess the reasons that are pulling you back. In case of confusion and mixed opinions, it is best to consult a business/personal coach.
Your leisure includes the time you give to yourself or your ‘me’ time. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of one’s life but can be detrimental to your overall physical and mental health. Not having a satisfactory ‘me’ time can make the mind processes weak and can result in an overall unhappy feel about the world and society.
Lastly, your wheel of life needs to have a supportive backing of your significant other. If your score in this department is less than the other sections, it is good practice to communicate and discuss problems so that you can work towards a solution together. It isn’t necessary that the life partner should be your spouse, it can be any romantic relationship that you consider important and that leads to either a satisfactory or an unsatisfactory score.
What Is The Wheel Of Life?
The Wheel of Life is one of the best coaching tools out there that allows a coach to assess their client in a meaningful manner. This, in turn, allows a coach to ascertain the coaching priorities and gauge the level of satisfaction that an individual is deriving from a particular aspect of their life. Coaches use the life balance wheel to assess the balance in someone’s life. They start by making a ‘wheel’ of pre-defined categories of life, like health, leisure, career, etc., and then ask the clients to assign a numeric value to the degree of satisfaction they derive from each area. Once filled, both the coach and the client have a clear view of how balanced the client’s life is and how satisfied they are from a particular area of life. The wheel of life assessment is not just for someone seeking more balance, it helps the client and become more self-aware, focused, and reassess their purpose in life as their coach facilitates conversations around each part of the wheel. The life balance wheel also helps people prevent problems from occurring through active participation in the coaching process to implement proactive strategies to living a better life.Wheel Of Life Categories
Although you can add or remove categories at your discretion depending on the client, or on your own life, a life balance wheel or wheel of life usually has eight categories. But you can add more or change the category names to suit the needs of a particular coaching session or client.
The usual categories found on a wheel of life are:
- Health
- Career
- Love
- Spirituality
- Family
- Money
- Fun
- Friends
History Of The Wheel Of Life
Paul J. Meyer pioneered the coaching industry back in 1960. His various programs were focused on bringing out the best in people and helped them become more able leaders and efficient time managers. The Wheel of life was another of Paul Meyer’s ingenious ideas that are still being used today. Paul Meyer is the founder of Success Motivation Institute and his motto of “Attitude is everything” made his name immortal in the field of coaching and leadership. His Wheel of Life coaching idea can be used in multiple fields of life and is such a versatile tool that it can be used before making any key decision. Everyone has taken his Wheel of Life tool and has made necessary changes to ensure that it passes the test of time. The life balance wheel is now available in paper form and web based applications that are more engaging. Meyer was not afraid of trying new things and his management prowess is exhibited by the fact that he owned more than 40 different businesses from different walks of life. Be it finance, or motor racing, he tried it all. Not all of them were proven successes but his attitude of trying new stuff and balancing the odds has left behind a legacy. Although Meyer’s wheel of life was a bit different than the one being used these days it laid out the idea of how assessment is to be done. The most popular iterations regarding the life balance wheel include the “pie” style wheel and the “spider web” wheel.Wheel Of Life Assessment
Our Tool
My coaching process starts with an assessment, including the life balance wheel to help you to live your life to the fullest by taking the reigns and leading your own life effectively with a thorough understanding of who you are, what you want, where you’re at, and how you plan to get to the next level. My team and I have made the wheel of life into an easy-to-do assessment that will help you reconnect with yourself and understand where you stand. You can use the custom Wheel of Life on my site to get started towards a better, more empowered life. The tool starts by asking you to rate each aspect of your life on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 is the highest score that means you are fully-satisfied with that particular aspect of your life and 1 means that you are highly dissatisfied with that aspect. You’ll be asked to rate all the above mentioned categories i.e. health, career, love, spirituality, family, money, fun, and friends. Our tool is highly interactive and is easy to comprehend as all the categories are color coded and labeled on your wheel of life. As you select a score from the ruler, your entry will appear on your life balance wheel and the next category will appear. Each category answered will add a sector to your wheel of life and slowly the ‘wheel’ will take a shape as you answer all eight. After you’re done with all eight, you’ll be given the option to input your name and email address, this will allow you to download your life balance wheel and keep a copy of it. This visual tool will help balance your life in a constructive and efficient manner so that you may live your life to the fullest. At Drew Aversa coaching, training, and consulting, we believe in maximizing the happiness in life alongside personal and professional results. By working on the whole-you, this presents an opportunity for improved leadership, and connection at work and at home.Wheel Of Life Pdf With Guide
We have prepared an easy-to-use wheel of life pdf that will make your assessment much easier if you want to do it a class or offline. Just download the life balance pdf and populate it with what you feel.
The best way to fill your life balance wheel is to have minimal distractions around you. If you believe that gadgets are a distraction, it is best to get a printout of the wheel of life and do it in an environment free from distraction.
Before you begin, try to ground yourself in reality and have a candid conversation with yourself so that your wheel reflects the truth in present time. The life balance wheel assessment functions best when it is realistic and honest.
Blank Wheel Of Life Template
If you’d like to assess a coaching client and prepare a life balance wheel for them, just download our blank wheel of life template. It will allow you to modify all the aspects of the coaching wheel and even rebrand the pdf to suit your needs. The template can either be filled online, offline, or even after printing it out. Again, the best way to get your wheel of life filled is by doing it with minimum distractions. If you are a coach and in need of technical help building a web based life balance wheel, you might want to consider working hiring me as your consultant to help you innovate and execute a web based solution for your clients.
How Does The Wheel Of Life Work?
The life balance wheel can be used in multiple situations and is not just limited to life in general. The clarity found in visualizing what’s in balance and what’s out of balance is extremely helpful for most people; and the ability to track progress, key to personal growth.
By drawing arcs in every sector you create a ‘wheel’ that may or may not have a uniform circumference. A balanced circumference means that your life has balance and you are optimally managing everything. On the contrary, a bumpy one will exhibit the imbalance in your life that is pulling you back and is not letting you enjoy your life to the fullest.
Having such a bumpy wheel of life also means that your life is not headed in the right direction and corrective action is required. Working with a life/business coach can help bring out the best in yourself. It is good practice to redo the wheel of life assessment after a certain period of time to check whether there have been any improvements in the direction or not.
It is not just life that can be gauged using the life balance wheel, people have been using it to make simple decisions too. This is done in the same manner as a normal wheel of life but for making a particular decision you select the most appropriate options or priorities that are applicable to that particular decision. Again, this decision and the way it is affecting your life can be checked by drawing up the life balance wheel again. If there are no improvements or if the situation has deteriorated, it is best to seek the help of a professional coach.
Wheel Of Life For Coaching
The Wheel of life is a great tool that can be used in several productive ways. It has pivotal importance when it comes to the world of coaching. A coach needs to assess what his or her clients need and where their life is headed. The coaching wheel allows them to do just that, productively and simplistically. This tool not only gives them insight into where the client’s life is right now but will also help in gauging if it is making progress in the right direction throughout the coaching process.
This is particularly important with individuals that are unsure about why they need coaching in the first place. Prospective coaching clients might realize that they need help, yet asking for it or validating it can be challenging without a clear visual indicator calling out what they are feeling deep inside. In this scenario, the coaching wheel helps get an overview of the areas of the client’s life that need attention and bring them to life to start the right conversation necessary for growth. Also, the balance wheel helps set the targets and goals when the coach and client discuss expectations, desired outcomes, and the path to goal achievement. Goals are generally prioritized to make sure that the sectors which are causing the most dissatisfaction to the client are looked into and worked on alongside competing interests in our busy world.
Although the first use of the coaching wheel is to assess the level of satisfaction or the lack thereof, the subsequent wheel of life exercises actually help gauge progress and the effectiveness of coaching. Everyone should be allowed to enjoy their lives and the coaching wheel is the basic diagnostic tool designed to pinpoint the sources of stress or dissatisfaction.
If you’re coaching someone, it means you are working hard to bring out the best in your client and this involves helping them with basic as well as advanced decision making. To assist them in a constructive manner it is imperative that you fully understand the current situation they are in. Only then is a coach truly able to help someone. In addition, the life balance wheel can actually help you gauge the coach-client relationship. This assessment will allow for efficient management of the relationship as it ascertains whether the client’s life is heading in the intended direction or not.
Apart from the usual ways of using the wheel of life assessment, it can also be used to help the client envision their ‘perfect’ life. It helps start the progress towards a more fulfilling and content life even from the first meeting.
- The wheel of life assessment session:
- Are there any surprises when you look at your life balance wheel? If yes, then which category has surprised you the most, and why?
- How much time do you currently allocate to each of these areas? Given the chance, what would your ideal time for each section be?
- What changes will get a score of 10 in a particular sector?
- Which section needs the most improvement?
- Do you think others around you need to change?
- Where do you want to start?
Customizing Life Balance Wheel
You can tailor the wheel of life according to the specific needs of a situation. You can label the life balance wheel with the situation you are using it for, and then change the 8 sections to areas of life that are important to you at that particular moment. While these sections usually remain the same, you can update them with what you feel is a priority in a particular situation. You could populate these sections based on the roles that you have to play in your life, use the usual approach of priorities and important areas, or use a combination of both these things that you feel are relevant to your current situation. One of the ways you can customize the wheel of life is by modifying it to be used to assess a person for an expected promotion. The sections can be relabeled to show the metrics against which a candidate is tested when they are evaluated for promotion. As the person fills the life balance wheel they will realize their shortcomings and can then work with a business/personal coach to make improvements in the areas that are not up to standard. Another such example is changing the wheel of life to assess a soccer player. The 8 sectors are labeled to depict the current level of satisfaction a player derives from their 8 different skills. This can include dribbling, pace, passing prowess, shooting, etc. This can then be filled by a player and then compared against a previous wheel of life about the same subject to see if there are any improvements or not. It is common to use the ‘spider web’ wheel instead of the ‘pie’ styled one for these kinds of comparisons. Some doctors even use the wheel of life to help them work on certain disabilities of their patients and this can help them gauge the changes that they see over time.How To Use It To Balance Your Life
To benefit from the wheel of life, the wheel has to be assessed for the shortcomings and the areas of life that are bringing dissatisfaction. A bumpy or uneven wheel that you might have obtained with the wheel of assessment shows that you are not content with certain aspects of your life. Balancing your life and maintaining balance is key to a happy and fulfilling life.
The main aim of the wheel of life is to make you self-aware of your life and the way it is progressing right now. Becoming self-aware involves interpreting what you feel every day and taking cues from that.
Once you have filled the wheel of life, you have evaluated the current level of satisfaction that you attach to each aspect of your life, it is time that you start working on improving the ones that are causing you dissatisfaction.
If you did not assign a score of 5 or above to health that means you need to put in some extra effort and integrate active exercising into your routine. Moreover, if you’re obese there is a need for weight management and diet planning. Get enough sleep and eat a balanced diet to achieve the best health score on your wheel of life.
Finances and financial prosperity are something that everyone should be satisfied with. If your financials are not that satisfying you need to take some sort of corrective action. This can include but is not limited to, revisiting your expenses, resource management, money management, credit control, and getting financial advice from a business or personal coach.
If your career progression is not satisfactory it might be time to rethink about it and make amends. If your work-life is not giving you the required satisfaction it generally means you consider your time and effort wasted, this can be detrimental to one’s mental health and can consequently affect your physical health too. If you’re unsure about what to do, consult a coach or mentor.
Family and friends are what keep us satisfied. Love, in general, is what human beings live and work hard for. If you’re not deriving a high level of satisfaction from this sector, it is good to go back to the drawing board and list down the prime factors that are causing you dissatisfaction when it comes to family and friends. If your dealings with friends and family are very contrasting, it is recommended to split the two into distinct sections so that you can analyze and then manage them accordingly. Communication is the key for these two sections, as it is humans that we are dealing with and as with everything human, communication can make things much, much better.
The home/Work environment is one of the most common areas of stress and can push one into depression. If your score in this section is not satisfactory, try and list down the main issues that you have with these factors and take corrective action. If any of the factors are in your personal control then dealing with them will improve your life immediately. If some factors seem to be beyond your control but are causing you dissatisfaction, discussing them with the appropriate people outside of your home environment can help provide relief, enabling you to live your life to the fullest.
Self-development is one of the most important factors that help define success. If your wheel of life has an average score of self-development, you need to assess the reasons that are pulling you back. In case of confusion and mixed opinions, it is best to consult a business/personal coach.
Your leisure includes the time you give to yourself or your ‘me’ time. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of one’s life but can be detrimental to your overall physical and mental health. Not having a satisfactory ‘me’ time can make the mind processes weak and can result in an overall unhappy feel about the world and society.
Lastly, your wheel of life needs to have a supportive backing of your significant other. If your score in this department is less than the other sections, it is good practice to communicate and discuss problems so that you can work towards a solution together. It isn’t necessary that the life partner should be your spouse, it can be any romantic relationship that you consider important and that leads to either a satisfactory or an unsatisfactory score.
