I want everything at once, but there is a lot to do. As a result, you don’t know what to grab onto, and you don’t have time to do anything.
I focused on work and neglected my family. You take care of your family, husband and children - the house is a mess. I've put everything in order - I don't even have the strength to get into the shower.
Sometimes it seems that juggling a dozen burning torches is easier than organizing things in the life of an ordinary woman.
And that's okay. No living person can keep all the important areas of life in his head at once. But you can draw your own Wheel of Life Balance and really assess what you are doing well and what needs to be improved. You look at the picture and you can immediately see what to grab onto and how to prioritize.
How to make a Life Balance Wheel (exercise technique)
At first glance, making your own Balance Wheel is very simple:
Step 1: Identify important areas of life. Step 2: Draw a form or download and print the template included in this article. Step 3: Evaluate each area and mark the result in the desired sector. Step 4: Analyze the Wheel of Balance.
But there are 4 common mistakes that can negate all the benefits of the exercise:
- You try to fit your life into the areas that someone else has listed for you, and you don’t think about what each area of life specifically means to you.
- You take exactly the number of areas of life that the template suggests (usually 8 or 12) instead of doing as much as you actually need.
- You don't think about the time frame in which you think. The wheel of balance within one day and within a lifetime are very different things.
- You don’t analyze the results, don’t draw conclusions, don’t set goals - as a result, the exercise turns from a useful tool into not very meaningful entertainment.
Now let's take a closer look.
How to work with a wheel
Bringing your life into balance, prioritizing is a major step towards a happy, self-controlled life. You cannot improve the aspects of your life that you do not pay conscious attention to.
As a rule, life becomes distorted due to the fact that we ourselves tilt it in a weaker direction every day. We strengthen our already strong sides, or we pay attention to things that do not bring satisfaction and growth.
The purpose of the exercise is to highlight in your mind the priority aspects of life for elaboration . To organize your life, you need to start with one area. If you learn to increase your satisfaction in one part of your life, it will be easy to transfer positive experiences to other areas.
Life balance wheel - helps you set priorities.
The next step after identifying a priority area is to understand what exactly does not satisfy you. Then make a plan and set goals to get things in order.
To the main questions “How to work with him?”, “How to achieve harmony in life?”, there is only one answer: you need to get closer to managing your life every day.
Which 12 areas of life to choose for the Wheel of Balance
Let's be honest!
We are all different. And it is likely that some of the points listed below will be completely unimportant for you. In this case, simply do not use it when drawing up your Life Balance Wheel.
But it also happens the other way around. If there is something so important in life that it deserves a separate sector, don’t be shy!
This is your life. Only you can decide what needs to be included in the Wheel of Balance and whether there will be 5, 8, 10 or 12 spheres. But to have plenty to choose from, check out this list.
12 spheres of the wheel of life balance
1. What's around me In what conditions do you live and work? Are you satisfied with your desktop? Room? House? Entrance? City? A country?
2. Family and environment Who surrounds you? Who do you communicate with regularly? This is your family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues. Do these people support you and help you develop, or, on the contrary, do they drag you down? If you chose your environment consciously, would you choose these people?
3. Relationships and love Warmth and joy, the feeling of “we are together”... There can be a lot of important things in a woman’s life. But when there is a strong and reliable relationship, when she is sure that she loves and is loved, this is a huge resource. And it seems that when everything is great in this area, a woman can literally flutter through life and implement truly big and interesting projects.
4. Children Not every person will highlight this area of life. Someone will combine relationships with children, their upbringing and development, with the sphere of Family and Environment. Someone will say that Children are about Relationships and Love.
But try to prove to a mother with many children or a woman on maternity leave that this is not a separate area of life. “How special!” - she will exclaim and look at you as at a very strange person who does not understand anything in life.
5. Health What is the state of your body? Do you have enough strength and energy? And if you look ahead, to the future? What habits keep you healthy? Which ones don't affect him very well?
6. Beauty Sometimes it is convenient to combine two areas into one area of life “Beauty and Health”. But, you see, Beauty is a broader concept. In addition to health, it is also about image, posture, gestures, demeanor, and grooming. That is why many women highlight it in a separate sector.
7. Rest and energy What a multifaceted concept - rest! It’s a pity that people often don’t take their vacation very responsibly. But rest is the basis for successful and productive work, happy relationships, and inner peace. How is your vacation? Check: Replenishment of physical strength: sleep, relaxation, shower or sauna, massage - is there? Replenishment of emotional strength: communication with friends, hugs with family, an hour with a book in a cozy chair - is this present in your life? Replenishing intellectual strength: walking, sports, dancing, watching a light movie - don’t you forget about this?
8. Money This is one of the key resources. But at the same time, money is a relative concept. Because how much money you need depends very much on what you want in life. It’s one thing to raise and send a child into life, another thing to send a spaceship to Mars. Is the money you have enough for life, for the implementation of your plans and projects?
9. Career, status, success In this area, everything is not so clear. It is clear that a woman who strived to build a career and received a high position is successful. Everything is clear here and there are no questions. Are you fulfilling yourself as a specialist?
What if a woman’s goal was to create a strong family, raise children, and support her husband? In my opinion, if the result is wonderful children, the husband is happy with everything, and the woman herself is a wonderful housewife, wife and mother, then she can also safely give herself a top ten in this area. What do you think? Maybe you are helping someone do a big and important thing and are fulfilling themselves as a life partner? Or maybe your calling is Mom, and first of all your success is the development and career of your children?
10. Hobbies, interests, brightness of life Someone can go somewhere far, far from home every weekend. And there you can wander around all day, looking at local sights, learning and absorbing another life, another culture, other customs.
And someone walks around the nearest Fabric store with the same delight. He admires the colors and colors, passes the finest silk between his fingers, picks up threads, buttons, and braid.
What are you ready to do, immersing yourself in the process? So it seems like time and fatigue are something that has nothing to do with you?
11. Developing myself, investing for the future How much does your current personality allow you to achieve your goals? Are you learning new things, creating the right habits, or setting interesting goals?
12. Spirituality They say that if a person understands the “why”, then he will endure any “how”. Is there a meaning in your life, a search for something greater than the individual in itself?
Once you have decided on the areas of life that are important to you, you can begin to make your Wheel of Balance.
Spheres of the Wheel of Life
Traditionally, the circle is divided into 8 spheres:
- Health. This is how attentive we are to the state of our physical body. Do we eat right, do we devote enough time to sleep, do we often walk in the fresh air, do we find time for sports, etc.
- Money. Are you satisfied with the size of your income, do you have enough money for necessary needs and everything that brings joy?
- Job. Here you need to answer the question of whether you like the activity through which you earn money, whether you care about your own self-realization, career, business.
- Family. This area may include relationships with a loved one, children, parents. You can analyze how often you spend time together, how much you trust each other and whether you can be frank with loved ones.
- Society. This includes relationships with friends, colleagues and others. We evaluate how sociable we are, how we see ourselves in social circles, what place we occupy in them, how many like-minded people we have and those we can rely on.
- Personal growth. This is all that makes us better: reading books, watching quality films, learning foreign languages, developing useful skills, getting rid of bad habits and developing useful ones, working with fears, self-esteem, etc.
- Rest. You need to rest as well as work. Travel, hobbies, entertainment, new experiences - these are all things that give us strength, energy and joy.
- Spiritual development. Everyone determines for themselves what this area means to them. Maybe this is a search for something greater than man himself: God, the meaning of life, purpose, truth, the study of religion, philosophy, etc. By the way, I advise you to read about how to find your purpose.
These are the main areas that are most often used when drawing up the circle of life. But it is not at all necessary to divide your diagram into 8 segments. There can be 6, 10, or 16. Below I will list other directions among which you can find your own:
- The brightness of life.
- Friendship.
- Love.
- Relatives.
- Sport.
- Appearance.
- Parenting.
- House.
- Trips.
- Capital, investment.
- Free time.
- Creation.
- Inner harmony.
- Studies.
- Stability, security.
- Charity.
- Self-esteem.
If you are interested in learning more about the areas of human life, I invite you to read our article.
How to download the Balance Wheel template or make it yourself
Download a suitable template for filling out the balance wheel using these links (will open in a separate window):
life balance wheel template 12 spheres - https://yadi.sk/i/zl4F10knXjoo1Q life balance wheel template 8 spheres - https://yadi.sk/ i/SsBXe32ron-fMw wheel of life balance download excel template – https://yadi.sk/i/lzl6Mqw-4gTXWQ
Or you can draw the balance wheel yourself.
For this:
- Draw a circle.
- Divide it into the required number of sectors.
- Divide each sector into 10 parts or draw scales on the borders of the sectors.
- Label each sector.
How else to use the exercise
As mentioned above, in psychology, the wheel of life balance helps to assess your current state. But this is not the only possibility of its use. There are 3 examples:
- Development of a small child. This includes everyday skills and abilities, fine motor skills, and logical thinking. Add also creativity, speech, study of the world around you.
- Healthy lifestyle. What to include in the diagram? Health, beauty, proper nutrition, sports. Self-esteem, flexibility, strength level will do.
- Business. This is the range of goods, stores and offices, the number and professionalism of employees, personal qualities as a leader, and the development of technology.
You can use the balance wheel in any area of your life. It will help you see problems in time and begin to solve them.
Is it possible to objectively evaluate your life?
Rate each area of your life on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “absolutely terrible” and 10 is “perfect.”
When assessing, you can focus on your own feelings and ask yourself questions:
- Am I satisfied with what I have in this area of life?
- Do you feel like something is missing?
- How am I feeling now?
- Am I satisfied with everything?
But feelings and emotions are unreliable things.
Today I had a fight with my husband - my score in the “Family” area went down. And two days later he realized his mistake, came home with a gorgeous bouquet and apologized. There are already 10 in the “Family” sector. So?
Therefore, in addition to sensations, it is worth focusing on a more reasonable approach.
Try to base your assessment on your 3-5 year goals.
Imagine that everything worked out in the best way in life. Everything worked out to the maximum, but in reality, without the use of a magic wand and the help of aliens. How would you like to live? Where, with whom, how would your typical day go? What have you achieved over the years?
Now compare this image with what we have now.
What areas of your life are consistent with the life you want to achieve? Which ones still lack resources and results?
Once you have analyzed and assessed each area of your life, place these marks on your Wheel of Balance and fill in the corresponding sectors with different colors.
And now you can move on to the most important stage - analyzing the results.
The dangers of misinterpretation are important
The Wheel of Life is just an exercise. The power is in the clarity of comparison with a physical wheel, but the same comparison is misleading.
No need to deceive yourself:
- Wheel of Expectations - a more accurate name for this technique.
Some people feel disappointed at the sight of their crooked wheel and think: “You can’t go far on such a wheel!” The name “wheel of life” suggests that on this wheel you roll through life, that this is your life.
But that's not true. When filling out the wheel of life balance, you take the ideal as what you think your life should look like, not what it is.
Remove expectations and idealization of your life, and your wheel will be perfectly smooth - that's exactly what you'll be rolling on.
Our life is already great. We are so used to good things that we have stopped appreciating them. And we pay attention to what we don’t have.
- The trap of idealizing the wheel. The word “wheel,” automatically and imperceptibly, attributes the properties of a physical wheel to the flow of our life.
Instead of the “wheel of life,” the brain draws the image of a car wheel – perfectly round, smooth, full of air. All. This image immediately idealizes your life.
Even when all areas have 8-10 points, it is still not ideal and annoying. We picture it as a “flat tire on a car” - you can’t even drive it out of the garage, let alone accelerate over 100 km/h.
- The Comparison Trap with Wheel Spokes – another, erroneously transferred, property of the physical wheel.
They depict the “wheel of life”, dividing the circle into even sectors. The illusion is created that all sectors are equally important. And what is more important, it seems that all categories occupy the same importance in life.
“Work” occupies a sector, and “creativity” occupies the same sector. If you work 8 hours a day, then you also have to do creative work for 8 hours a day?
We do not realize this mistake, but the subconscious saw the sectors as equivalent. This equality of spheres of life is already tormenting a person. You need to catch this moment in time and not sweat it.
- Wheel size misconception.
The method offers ratings from 1 to 10 points. If you are very dissatisfied with your health and gave 1 point (for example, you got a bad back at the age of 23). The “life balance wheel” will show that you have only 10% health. This assessment is fair for an 85-year-old man, but not here.
The method does not take into account the scale of your life. If you rate everything on 3-5 points, it’s easy to fall into the illusion that your life is insignificant.
It is more correct to set from 91 to 100 points. This way it will be clear that life is great, there is everything to enjoy it now. And in order to feel 100, you can strain yourself.
- Wheel of life in the moment.
Today, when filling out the life balance wheel, you are unhappy that there has been no promotion at work for a whole year - you put a mark of 3. A week later you are promoted, you already put a 10. Growth by 7 points in a week!
The test program does not show the dynamics, take it into account yourself.
- Wheel of an Ideal Life.
When composing the wheel of life balance, you can set your “expectations” from life and get upset. For a positive-minded person who has already worked with this test more than once, and more than once reached 10 points in all areas, this method is transformed into the “Wheel of Approaching an Ideal Life.” An example - to a perfect day.
In fact, a person understands that life is wonderful and he really loves to develop, set new goals and achieve them. In this case, scores from 1 to 10 will reflect its approach to goals in all categories.
An important difference: a person already feels like a top ten! But he wants more, so he can put a mark of 6, where it would have been worth putting 16 a long time ago.
Man has seen from his own experience all these dangers of interpreting wheel size. He understands that the circle has long grown, but his demands have grown along with him. We need to come to this.
Analysis of exercise results
Distortions in balance
The first thing you will pay attention to is whether there is a clear imbalance in life. How did your Wheel turn out – smooth or not so smooth?
Perhaps some sectors of the circle will be filled in almost completely: these are your strengths, here you can take resources, and you can rely on them in life.
Some other sectors may be almost at zero. Clearly, the sagging sectors are likely to require your attention right now.
Strengths
Identify 2-3 “strong” sectors, and 2-3 that require investment of effort and time
It happens that the wheel turns out to be even, but small - 3-4 in all directions. And this is where it’s worth thinking about. Sometimes the fact is that you are very demanding of yourself, and your dreams, plans, and tasks for the future are too ambitious. In this case, to get to the top ten in any sector you need to work seriously and for a long time. This is fine. This happens if a person wants a lot, but he is still at the very beginning of his journey.
But it happens that, frankly speaking, you have neglected your life. The truth is that letting life take its course can sometimes lead to less than pleasant results. Why this happened is a good question, but it is better to deal with it separately. Now it’s more important to figure out how to change the situation.
A large and even Balance Wheel: is this always good?
It may also be that the Wheel turned out beautiful and neat, even - all sectors are 9-10. This speaks of two things at once:
1. You keep a very good balance between all areas of life, know how to distribute your forces in the best possible way and pay attention to all important tasks on time. 2. But at the same time, the question arises: could it be that you set small and weak goals and objectives in your life? Isn't it time to aim for something big and interesting? Something that would add brightness, joy, happiness and meaning to your life?
Useful materials about the balance wheel
Keep a selection of books on the topic:
- Radislav Gandapas “Full F: life as a business project” (electronic version on liters, paper version on Labyrinth).
- A. Parabellum, O. Goryacho, N. Mrochkovsky, A. Tolkachev “Breakthrough! 11 best trainings for personal growth” (Labyrinth).
- Itzhak Pintosevich “Act! 10 commandments of success” (LitRes, Labyrinth).
On the blog iklife.ru you can find a selection of the best books on self-development.
Videos on YouTube:
What to do next?
You can analyze endlessly, but life will not get better from analysis alone. So don't make the common mistake of stopping at this step. Analyzing the result is only half the exercise.
And then it’s time to figure out how to find that same balance and make your life easier, more enjoyable and more interesting.
First - relationships
Consider whether there are areas that are interconnected and influence each other. Sometimes changes in one area will lead to changes in another. And it will be great if you find such magic keys that open up new opportunities in all directions at once.
For example, sometimes moving to another city (a change in the “What’s Around” sphere) can significantly affect other areas of life - Career, Family, Environment.
Second - looking to the future
The time has come to outline what to strive for in the near future. Of course, I would like the results of the assessment on the Wheel of Balance in all areas of life to immediately reach the maximum, 10.
But let's be realistic. Sometimes you have to give up something.
It happens that you want a child for your Family, but in this case your Career will most likely sag. Or, for example, a strong breakthrough in your Career can cost your Health or Family. Do you really need it, or maybe it’s better to tone it down and set more realistic goals?
Think about it: what will your Wheel be like in six months? And in a year? Which areas need to be improved, and which areas can you settle for less? What is most important to you?
Directly on the resulting drawing, mark with a dotted line how you would like your Balance Wheel to look.
We set specific goals
Select 3-4 areas and outline goals and objectives in them that will lead to the desired changes. What exactly needs to be done?
A correctly formulated goal should contain:
- Positive wording. Write not what you want to leave or get rid of, but what you want to get as a result.
- A result that is clear to you , which will clearly show that the goal has been achieved. For example, “improve your health” is not a very clear formulation, but “lose 6 kg” or “get a consultation with an ophthalmologist” is much better.
- Deadline for achieving the goal. It is better to indicate a specific date here. Not “in six months”, but “before August 17”
Also, be sure to check your goals and objectives for sustainability. In simple terms: imagine that the goals have been achieved, and think whether this will really be right and good for you and the people close to you.
Wheel of life method of life analysis and planning
The wheel of life balance technique allows you to analyze every area of life, the level of its development and satisfaction with the processes taking place. Thanks to the work done, it is easier to plan further courses of action to achieve life balance.
Thus, the goals and objectives of the model come down to objectively assessing the identified areas of life and forming a plan for the development of corresponding priorities. The effectiveness of the technique depends on how reliably the work was carried out and on the desire for self-development and self-improvement.
There are many ways to make a life balance wheel:
- print a ready-made template from the Internet;
- draw independently in accordance with your own goals;
- fill out online.
The model should be available at any time in order to see the result of the work done and its impact on your life, the positive changes taking place.
The life balance wheel does not work
The wheel of life balance of life spheres is not working? You may have encountered one of the pitfalls when filling it out:
- You deceived yourself, you noted not the real picture, but your expectations, therefore, you clearly see not what is happening now, but your ideal.
- They idealized the model because in your mind the wheel must be round. Therefore, you aim to arrange the points in such a way that you get an even circle. This is not true.
- Model size misconception. You gave either all low scores, or, conversely, all high scores. Evaluate it objectively: if you earn 30 thousand rubles at the age of 20, but want 100 thousand, this does not mean that you need to give 1 point to the financial sector.
- The timing of the model also matters. Today you are single and put 1 point in the “love” sector, and tomorrow you meet your soulmate, and you want to put all 10 points. Track your progress and update your schedule.
Any questions you have about the wheel of life balance, leave them in the comments, I’ll be happy to answer your reviews. But I hope you understand what the “Wheel of Life Balance” model is and why it is needed. Most importantly, remember that the schedule should correspond only to your and no one else’s priorities, desires and goals.
How to evaluate segments on the wheel of life
There are several ways to grade yourself in every area of your life.
Method No. 1
For each area of life, write down how it should look and develop in order for you to rate it a solid “ten”?
Write in detail, perhaps point by point, for example:
At 10 on the scale, I have a family. Next to me is a loving foreign husband, three children, a house by the sea. Every weekend we all get together to go somewhere on vacation. Every morning we only have breakfast in restaurants. My husband is a great dessert cook and loves cleaning.
After describing your desired reality, take a look at your current situation, how far are you from what you want?
For example, if you are not married, but ideally would like to have a husband and three children, then this is clearly below 5 points.
On the subject: How to get married: step-by-step instructions
The main thing is to never get upset or depressed if you suddenly realize that you are very far from what you want.
In any case, all dreams are possible. This exercise is only to show you the right direction to move: “what exactly do I want, what do I really want to see in my life?”
Method No. 2
Ask yourself questions about every area of your life and try to answer them as honestly as possible. For example:
- Do I like my job? Am I happy with what I do? Do I want to do this in 1-3 years?
- Am I satisfied with my financial situation? Do I have enough money for all my desires?
- Do I like the way I look? Is my health okay?
- My relationship, is everything good in it? How do I feel around this person?
And so on. When answering these questions, score as honestly as possible.
Fill in each sector of the circle this way.
Ideally, you should have a real balance wheel, round and even, all segments worth 10 points.
This is real harmony in life, success. And if this is exactly what happened to you, then I can only be sincerely happy for you!
But what if you notice that your balance wheel is not a wheel at all, but a strange broken figure?
In this case, it’s time for you to radically change your life. Feel free to make wishes and materialize them. Bring all segments of sectors to a perfect ten. Write down the desires that you want to realize in each area.
On the subject: How to change your life with the power of thought?
Example of a filled balance wheel:
Why is it important to watch the balance wheel?
Every person's life is a diary in which he intends to write one story, but writes another; and his most miserable hour is when he compares the scale of what he actually achieved with what he was going to do,
- said James M. Barry.
I completely agree with him. After all, I also often see how a person sets himself some kind of goal (for example, financial, or any other) and stubbornly moves towards it. He goes ahead, not noticing anything in his path. Sacrifices relationships, health, environment...
And so, when the goal is achieved, he stops and suddenly realizes that the result does not please him at all. He did not arrive at all where he wanted: there is money, there is fame, but there is no satisfaction and happiness, no love and harmony.
And while he was moving towards his only goal, the ashes and debris of life were left behind in the form of burnout, damaged relationships, loss of mutual understanding with loved ones, and poor health.
We often notice this, unfortunately, too late.
Do you also set yourself ambitious financial goals? Then I recommend that immediately after reading this article, check your balance wheel and understand whether everything is in order with your money segment. And with the whole wheel as a whole.
You know, you can achieve financial goals not only by working hard and persistently 24 hours a day, working your ass off, losing your health and your best years.
One day I revealed the secret of attracting money.
Would you like to receive it as a gift? >>>
Coaching Wheel: Top View
Why do all maps of the area have a top view (we can remember this from geography and orienteering lessons at school)? Since from this angle you can perfectly see and evaluate all objects at the same time. The perspective makes it possible to develop, in the process of drawing up the wheel, a tactical and strategic vision of life, in order to subsequently make informed decisions and set goals based on the complete “picture”. For this:
- Draw a simple circle.
- Break it down into sectors, taking into account the areas highlighted by the client.
- Apply a traditional scale (from 0 to 10) to the sectors.
- The client must rate his level of satisfaction with the areas. It is fundamentally important to understand the meaning and feeling that a person has behind the numbers.
- Visualization can be done in a playful way, which often makes the process easier: in the form of “pieces of pie,” “sliced pizza,” or “cobwebs.”
