Recently I had the privilege of attending a coaching seminar presented by Mission Ignition with my husband, Matt. Our neighbor, and good friend Kip Kint is the founder of Mission Ignition so it was great to finally see what Kip teaches his coaching clients and get a sense of it. The emphasis was creating results while keeping life in balance. Part of the program was to diagram “The Wheel of Life.” Kip asked, “If your ride down the Road of Life seems a little bumpy, is it the road or is it your wheel?”
“The Wheel of Life” is broken into a pie with 8 slices:
Business/Career
Finances
Health
Family and Friends
Romance
Personal Growth
Fun and Recreation
Physical Environment
We were asked to plot on a graph and rank each section 1-10 (1 being poor, 10 being “it can’t get any better”). Then we were to see how balanced or imbalanced it was. My lowest area was “fun and recreation” actually, partly because for the past 7 months I’ve counted blogging as my “fun”…but really it’s not “fun and recreation” since I’m trying to build a business here, so it belongs in “business/career.” I’m also seriously lacking in exercise, unless you count laundry folding, snow shoveling or baby carrying as an exercise! My best categories were Friends/Family, Personal Growth, and Business/Career…the rest could use some attention!!
Today’s Magic Wand: I challenge you to create a pie chart with the 8 slices and name them as we did, so each slice gets a different title. Then plot and number each slice with 1-10 and put a dot where you’re at, then as you complete the chart, you can color in each slice and see where you are at. It is very eye-opening and it’s a good time to recognize that if you put all of your energy in certain areas, your life will not be balanced or satisfying. We all know that a few work all-nighters or late-nights kill our health, likely hurts our relationships because we’re too tired to be patient and cheerful, and our physical environment suffers as well, because we likely haven’t paid attention to our dishes in awhile. Then we try and make up for the “late night” and spend the entire next day neglecting some other areas to recover. It’s a bad cycle that I’m trying to break. Perhaps I’m not alone in my quest.
As part of the seminar we were to make a goal in each section and set a date for when we would accomplish the task. As part of my “fun and recreation” I’m finally going to get my 100+ year old piano tuned so I can start playing it. And as part of my health goal, I’m finally going to get to a yoga class…I know that balance really is key and achievable, if you focus on each area daily or weekly as required. Best of luck with your goals too!
Kelly…This is exactly what I needed! I am completely UN-BALANCED and this was a wonderful reminder to take time to have fun in life and enjoy the ride! Thank you!
[...] playroom for my kids. What does this have to do with being an entrepreneur? It’s part of the wheel of life and our absolute need for being balanced in all areas so we can be more effective and [...]
[...] Life-Work-Family Balance [...]
This really is a great tool. I have had the opportunity to use it with small groups. What we do is have the each person in the group is list different areas of their lives. I give examples (career, family..) but I don’t tell them what has to be in the list. I do tell them that if they have similar things (ie exercise and nutrition) that they should group them together into a main category (health).
I then have them make a circle and draw as many pie pieces as they have categories.
Then they draw a semi-circle in each category representing where they feel they are at on a scale of 0 to 10 (zero being the center).
Then I have them choose tow categories and set goals in those categories. They don’t have to choose their lowest categories. In fact, I recommend holding off on those until they see success in something that might be easier. I then have them break into smaller groups of two or three and share their goals with each other.
This exercise also provides people with something to focus on if they have a coach.
A good follow up exercise is to break each category down into sub categories. For example: If you are having great difficulty with finances, you can draw a circle and put pie slices in it that say Budget, Retirement, Income, Emergency Fund, Life Insurance, Debt, Investments, Mortgage, etc… and rate each of those on the 10 scale. This will help you to focus even more on specific areas within your budget that you need to set goals on.
This really is a great tool. I have had the opportunity to use it with small groups. What we do is have each person in the group list different areas of their lives. I give examples (career, family..) but I don’t tell them what has to be in the list. I do tell them that if they have similar things (ie exercise and nutrition) that they should group them together into a main category (health).
I then have them make a circle and draw as many pie pieces as they have categories.
Then they draw a semi-circle in each category representing where they feel they are at on a scale of 0 to 10 (zero being the center).
Then I have them choose two categories and set goals in those categories. They don’t have to choose their lowest categories. In fact, I recommend holding off on those until they see success in something that might be easier. I then have them break into smaller groups of two or three and share their goals with each other.
This exercise also provides people with something to focus on if they have a coach.
A good follow up exercise is to break each category down into sub categories. For example: If you are having great difficulty with finances, you can draw a circle and put pie slices in it that say Budget, Retirement, Income, Emergency Fund, Life Insurance, Debt, Investments, Mortgage, etc… and rate each of those on the 10 scale. This will help you to focus even more on specific areas within your budget that you need to set goals on.
Hi,
I am currently training to be a life coach in the UK and I really love your wheel of life. I wanted to ask if it was possible for me to use it with my clients. I would off course say that this has been with agreement form yourself and make reference to your web site.
Thank you
Wendy
Hi,
I’m putting together a small website concerning my own personal recovery plan to defeat addiction. I plan on using this site to share information with counselors at a specific transitional assistance program for homeless veterans that I am involved with, and to share what has worked for me with others who might be interested.
I also wanted to ask if it was possible for me to embed your wheel of life graphics into my website. I would also say that this has been with agreement form yourself, provide a link to your website on the same page and make reference to your web site in the bibliography.
I am a life coach and have use a similar wheel with my clients. I love the look of yours and am also wondering if I may copy and use it.
Thanks.
Anyone can use this diagram if they wish… it’s from google images.
enjoy!
I think that the wheel is terrific, and works well for assessing balance in one’s life. The one section that I don’t understand is Physical Environment. What does that mean?
[...] about it? What didn’t go so well? Did you get burned out? Why? You might like to look at the Wheel of Life and rate yourself in each category. If you’re really up to doing a thorough review, take a [...]
I would like to say thanks a lot for letting me know of this tool. It really changes many things around and especially – the relationships with relatives. My wheel now looks a lot more of round shape than what it was before.
By the way, there is a program on the subject that’s called the same, which I personally really liked and would recommend. I like using your figure, but since my laptop is with me literally all the time, I found using the program
more convenient. (If any one would like to take a look, that’s wolapp.com)
[...] skills to draw and segment the circle. Also, the image used at the start of this blog comes from Startup Princess which has some additional information too. Oh, and click on the image above to get a larger version [...]