The Wheel of Life

Have you ever had several days in a row where you’re just not feeling all that great mentally?

(What a silly question…of course you have – you’re a human!). 

Maybe you notice a tightness in your chest, shoulders, neck. Or maybe you feel all around heavy energy and lots of negative emotions. Perhaps you even notice this thought cross your mind: “My. Life. Sucks.” 

I’ve noticed that when we don’t feel good physically, we have our go-to – maybe we take some ibuprofen, drink some water, lay down to rest. When we don’t feel good mentally, however, what do we tend to do to help ourselves?

One thing I’ve learned that helps me is to take a moment to reflect on my Wheel of Life. The Wheel is a well-known coaching tool and one that I share with my individual coaching clients and in my presentations on mental health and well-being. 

What The Wheel helps us do is pause for a moment to take a look at all of the different segments that make up the “whole” of our life. (Check out the pic)! For a moment, we get to pull ourselves out of the weeds where we get bogged down with details and we can take a bird’s eye view to see the bigger picture.

Without overthinking, we rate on a scale of 0 – 10 how satisfied we currently feel in each segment:

0 – NOTHING is salvageable, you would throw it all out and change absolutely everything if you could
5 – Middle of the Road…things are “fine”
10 – PERFECTION…the angels are singing! Colors – brighter! Food – tastier! Wouldn’t. Change. A. Thing.

By taking the moment to reflect, we immediately notice that there are some segments that aren’t the worst (or better yet, maybe they’re even quite good!). This provides a feeling of relief (and maybe even gratitude!) “It’s not my WHOLE life that stinks right now…it’s just these specific areas!” 

The best part? Once we pinpoint which areas, we need to flow more energy and time toward, we can create clear action steps, however small they may be, to work toward improving that segment.

This is what I love about The Wheel – it feels empowering! Each time I am reminded that I actually DO have some power to work toward feeling better. It lights a spark, it creates momentum, and little by little we can improve a specific area of our life so that the overall “flow” of our wheel can feel smoother.

Whenever your organization is ready to start having these conversations and provide more training for your employees and leaders, be sure to contact me. 

This topic isn’t going away, and we need to be equipped with tools, strategies, mindsets, perspectives, and skills to be able to confidently address all that comes our way.