How can the wheel of life help you?
Most people know the feeling of being unhappy with how our everyday lives look, or being stressed. Although we may feel that we need to make some changes, it can be difficult to get an overview of our lives and priorities in a hectic everyday life. This is something that the Wheel of Life can help with.
How to work with the wheel of life
Start by finding a place where you can sit still for the 20 minutes that it takes to do the exercise. If you have the opportunity, you can also choose to spend more time. Print or draw the wheel, which is also illustrated here, and find something to write with.
The classic wheel of life is divided into 8:
Finances
Leisure
Personal development
Relationships
Work/study
Friends/family
Health and housing
However, the wheel of life can look different from person to person, so if there are some of the categories you would like to swap with something else, or just not include, then that is also fine. The most important thing is that the categories make sense for you to work with.
When the wheel of life is ready
- Start by choosing the area of your life on your wheel that you want to start with. Consider how satisfied you are with the area, and give it a rating between 0 and 10, where 0 is not at all satisfied and 10 is completely satisfied.
- Fill in the field in your wheel with the grade you have given it. 0 is the center of your wheel and 10 is the circumference.
- When you have finished one area, you move on to the next. Keep going until you have been through the entire wheel.
- Once you have filled in the whole wheel, do the same exercise again on a new wheel. But instead of considering how satisfied you are with the different areas, think about how much mental time you spend on them. That is, for example, how much you think about it, or worry about it. Rate again from 0 to 10 and fill in the fields.
- Finally, you make the wheel a third time, where you have to consider how much actual time you spend on each area. That is, how much time you physically spend with your family, for example, and not the time you spend thinking about them (the mental time). Rate again from 0 to 10 and fill in the fields.
- Look at your three wheels, and compare them. If there is a big difference in how much mental time you spend in an area, compared to physical time, it will often mean that it is an area with low satisfaction. There is an imbalance in that area that you can work on.
For reflections on imbalances
If you notice imbalances between your life wheels, you can choose an area and try to think about the following questions:
- What makes it so that there are not even greater imbalances?
- What works well?
- What could I do to create more balance?
- What stands in the way of doing that?
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