You may have heard about the balance wheel more than once. I already told you about him once.
But the topic is so important and relevant that I decided to write a new article. She will help you not only build your balance wheel correctly, but also show you how to work with it in order to radically improve your life.
Today you will learn:
- What is a balance wheel
- How to work with it correctly
- Why is it important to know what areas of your life you have gaps in?
- How to draw your circle of life
- How to understand which area of life is developed and which needs adjustment
- What to do to balance your wheel of life
Well, I suggest moving on to the next sections of this valuable article, then all the fun!
The “Wheel of Life Balance” method
To achieve balance in life, you need to put all sectors of your life in order. To assess the state of the parts of your life that are important to you, use this exercise.
The Wheel of Life is a technique for analyzing and planning life. [1]
We print out a template picture or calculate the “wheel” online. We divide the circle into 8 sections, like a pizza. Each sector is one area of life. You can choose your own or those described above.
Rate the current state of each area from 1 to 10 points (1 – terrible, 10 – everything is wonderful). 1 – inside the circle, 10 – on the outer circle. As a result, you get a wheel of vital balance of your life.
The Wheel of Life Balance is an example.
An area of life that scores low is the main source of dissatisfaction in life. By improving it, you improve your overall feeling of well-being.
The exercise can be done once every 1-3 months to see progress.
Drawing conclusions
Take a look at your wheel of life and figure out which areas you haven't paid enough attention to. This method is very good for its clarity. Everything immediately becomes clear and understandable.
If you have left some areas of your life to chance, it’s time to thoroughly take on them and improve them. You can be proud of those points on which you score high. Thanks to this method, you can really understand what to focus on.
Start with those positions for which the ratings are minimal. The sooner you fix these holes, the better for you. You need to make a list of tasks that you will complete to improve the situation. To do this, use your imagination and imagine how things should have been for you to give a 10.
Then, specific steps to achieve your goal will begin to appear in your imagination, and by implementing them you will improve your life. Everything needs to be written down carefully and carefully. Thus, mental work will take place, as a result of which the right decisions will appear.
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.
How many spheres should there be - 8, 10, 12 or 16?
There are often disputes about how many spheres in a wheel it is correct to draw. There is no right or wrong answer here. Each person applies what he considers necessary. And it is not at all necessary to follow the classical path.
You can break some areas into smaller ones.
For example: the “Family” sector can be divided:
- Relationship with husband
- Parenting with children
- Relationships with parents
- Cooking
- Home time management
The number of areas is allocated empirically. What worries you the most or a small assessment can be broken down into its components.
For example: "Career"
- Professional training
- Self-paced learning
- Relationships with colleagues or superiors
- Looking for a new job
- Mastering a related profession
Or another example of division - “Rest”:
- Hobby
- Books for the soul (you can find a reading list)
- Free time
- Trips
- Entertainment
The disadvantage, in my opinion, of wheels with many spheres is the dispersion of attention. Lost focus from important areas. Personally, I don't like working with 16 areas (but that's my opinion). I prefer to display complex areas in a separate diagram. This results in faster dynamics and less fuss.
Maybe you will be interested in an article about an easier way to achieve goals: drawing up a wish map.
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 those aspects of your life that you do not consciously attend 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.
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.
Useful materials
Download test template:
- Picture/photo templates for printing:
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.- Exercise designer in Excel format, PDF #1 – editable, PDF #2.
- Coaching template in Word #1 format. Template in Microsoft Doc #2.
- PowerPoint template. Presentation - How to Fill a Wheel in PowerPoint #2.
- Application. Life balance matrix – “Full F”. R. Gandapas.
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Books about the exercise:
- R. Gandapas - “Full F: life as a business project.” Audiobook.
- N. Mrochkovsky - “Breakthrough! 11 best personal growth trainings"
- Technique of the wheel of life balance in coaching: I. Pintosevich - “Act! 10 commandments of success"
Video:
- R. Gandapas - About the wheel of life in business.
- N. Mroczkowski - How to create a “Wheel of Life” diagram.
- How to make a wheel of life in Excel.
