Do you ever feel like your life is out of balance? Like you’re constantly juggling different areas of your life, but never quite getting it right? Perhaps your career is on track, but your relationships could use some work, or maybe your health and fitness goals are falling short. It’s a common experience, and one that can be frustrating and overwhelming.
Ideally, everyone should be taking the time to ask where do I need to improve the balance in my life? But it is not always easy when you’re living life. Fortunately there is an easy tool to help identify areas of imbalance; the wheel of life.
In this post, we’ll explore how you can use the wheel of life to identify where you may want to focus your attention to create a more fulfilling life — a life at level 10.
Why do you want a balanced life?
Living a balanced life is about fulfilment and wellbeing. For example, you have career fulfillment as well as good health and great relationships. If you focus too much in one area e.g. your career and neglect other aspects of your life, you are likely to experience a decline in those areas.
A more recent concept is balancing life. This recognises that there are always changing demands in our lives, so you can’t just balance your life once and you’re done. This concept sees life as dynamic, and we need to flex our attention between different areas depending on what is happening.
By improving all aspects of your life, you can focus on one area more if necessary, without compromising the others. This allows for greater flexibility and an ability to prioritize when needed. This makes it easier to manage short-term challenges, such as meeting a work deadline, running a marathon, or taking care of a sick relative. Once the pressure moment has passed, you then put more attention back into the lower areas to lift them back up. Reviewing the different areas of your life on a regular basis is crucial to ensure you don’t become fixated on one while the others suffer.
What is the wheel of life?
The life wheel is a perfect tool to assess satisfaction and balance in your life as a whole. The wheel is divided into sections representing different categories of life including career, health, family. The wheel of life exercise illustrates our present situation and so you can quickly and easily identify disparities and lower satisfaction levels. It’s possible that some areas may score higher than others, indicating an imbalance that needs addressing.
What is a level 10 life?
The concept of a level 10 life comes from having all segments of the wheel at level 10. As previously mentioned, since life requires us to adapt constantly, it may be unrealistic to expect to reach a point where every aspect of our lives is at its peak performance at once. However, the idea of gaining increased fulfilment and balance in all areas is a goal worth aspiring to.
The Level 10 Life concept takes goal-setting to the next level by encouraging you to set goals in different areas of your life that are truly meaningful to you.
Using journal prompts to achieve a more balanced life
Journaling can help identify where your life is out of balance by capturing your thoughts on paper. Once you see what you’ve written, you may see a pattern you want to change such as all you write about is worries related to work and no fun activities.
What are journal prompts?
Journal writing prompts are questions or statements that provide a starting point for writing. They may encourage you to think on a different topic or an issue from a different perspective. This going deeper into your thoughts is why they are beneficial for personal development purposes.
Why and when to use journal prompts?
The main reasons to use journal prompts are when you don’t know what to write, you want to challenge yourself with some different topics or when you want more structure or guidance.
Using the wheel of life as a journal prompt
I’ve been using the wheel of life for over ten years, so I’m surprised I haven’t incorporated it into my journaling before. Previously I’ve created the wheel diagram in a spreadsheet and made a few comments in a blog post. By drawing the wheel in my journal and writing my observations I was able to get closer to my thoughts and therefore more clarity.
Complete a blank life wheel and then write the thoughts that come to mind when you look at the shape. Keep in mind that balance looks different for everyone, and it’s up to you to determine what balance looks like for you. So when you write, don’t focus on the wheel looking imbalance or having low numbers. Think about whether it represents your current life and the life you want. Note any surprises in the scores you’ve given and highlight the areas for improvement that are important to you. Yes Level 10 life is a thing, but you’re only going to achieve it with baby steps in the direction you want to go.
How to fill out the wheel of life?
Start with a blank wheel of life, which has ten concentric circles and lines from the centre to the edge to create a section for each category. Then complete the wheel by plotting your level of satisfaction in each category on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being completely dissatisfied and 10 being completely satisfied. You can either colour in the segments or add a dot on the line which you join up. The resulting shape will give you a visual representation of your life balance and areas of your life that need improvement.
What categories are on the wheel of life?
There are usually 8-10 categories and you can use the ones that come on a wheel of life printable or select your own that are relevant to your phase of life. Don’t feel pressured to choose categories that you think you “should” care about, but instead focus on the areas that will have the greatest impact on your happiness and fulfilment.
Wheel of life / Level 10 category ideas include:
- health and fitness
- finances
- relationships
- career
- personal development
- spirituality
- family and friends
- physical environment
- fun and recreation
- giving back
- significant other
Identifying Level 10 Life Goals
Once you have assessed your current level of balance using the Wheel of Life, you can use it to identify areas that you would like to improve. You might find that some areas of your life are thriving, while others need more attention. This is perfectly normal, and it’s important to remember that achieving balance doesn’t mean that you have to be equally successful in every area of your life. Instead, it means finding a healthy distribution of time and energy that works for you.
Start by identifying one or two areas of your life that you want to focus on. Setting too many goals at once can be overwhelming and lead to burnout. Think about what your Level 10 life would look like for each category, and then choose a small actionable step that will move you towards it. Your goals should be inspiring and motivating, and designed to help you achieve your desired future life.
Here are some examples of questions you could consider for each category:
- Career: What would your dream job or career path look like? What steps can you take to move closer to that goal?
- Relationships: Who are the people in your life who bring you joy and fulfillment? How can you deepen those relationships or build new ones?
- Health and fitness: What activities make you feel energized and healthy? How can you incorporate those activities into your daily routine?
- Personal Growth: What skills or knowledge would you like to develop? How can you challenge yourself to learn and grow?
- Finances: What are your financial goals for the short and long term? How can you make smart financial decisions to achieve those goals?
- Spirituality: What beliefs or practices give you a sense of purpose and meaning? How can you incorporate those into your daily life?
- Fun and Recreation: What hobbies or activities bring you joy and relaxation? How can you make time for those activities?
What next
You may want to do some more journaling inspired by what you’ve learnt. For example, you may decide your score is low in one area because you’re scared to push yourself, so you may want to do some journaling with prompts related to limiting beliefs or changing your thoughts.
If you want to do more reading on the topic there are plenty of books that include the wheel of life, here are some popular ones:
- The miracle morning by Hal Elrod (my review) — popularised the concept of the level 10 life
- The big leap by Gay Hendricks (my review) — while this doesn’t mention the wheel of life it explores how to expand your comfort zone
- Do it scared by Ruth Soukup (my review) — another book that focuses on the fears that stop us from achieving what we want
- The compound effect — Darren Hardy
Conclusion
It’s important to take stock of our lives and identify where we need to improve the most. The wheel of life is a useful tool in assessing where our lives may be out of balance. A few small actions each day can put us on the path to limitless possibilities and a fulfilling and meaningful life.