While looking for a book to take on a business trip, I noticed I had previously bought another book on goals, How to Be Brilliant by Michael Heppell and as I’d never read it I packed it.
The first key message is to aim to achieve a balanced life and not concentrate on one aspect at the detriment of another. Michael Heppell suggests using a Wheel of Life as a measure of balance, but as a measure to show progress in your development.
I have previously done a similar exercise as part of a management diploma course. I asked people to score my skills against the company’s core competencies at the start and end of the course. I found it a useful visual tool to highlight weaker areas and to show where I had developed during the course.
My current wheel of life is:
It is fairly clear that I need to work on relationships, contributions and vision. However the good thing is that I had already subconsciously selected these as attention areas; but it is good to have my thoughts confirmed.
Relationships – I’m good at making close acquaintances, but not really going further. However I’m already progressing on this by making more effort to meet up with friends
Contribution – it is on my task list to find out if I can use my spare material and wool to make items for hospitals
Vision – this exercise is just one step in my aim to discover what I want
*Disclosure – this post includes affiliate links which means if you buy something after using it I will earn some money from the seller for suggesting you visit them. However, it will not cost you anything extra.
Hi,
As someone who makes very effective use of the wheel of life I think you may be interested to review an interactive version that I have designed.
It functions perfectly on the web and is much more user friendly than previous (excel) versions and much quicker than completing it manually.
Have a look. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
David Marston
Hi David
I am writing a post on my blog referring to the wheel and wonder if you could send me the link to your interactive version or where I might find it on the site? I really liked your post so would be keen to redirect any readers to your site should they fancy having an attempt at it.
Many thanks,
Patrick
Patrick,
The link in David’s comments no longer seems valid, but I’ve found a version of the tool on another site http://www.qccgroup.com/wheeloflife.html Hope this is what you were looking for.
Hello David,
I like your interactive version. You are correct it is easier to use than the spreadsheet I currently use.
As you requested feedback, my two comments are it would be good to be able to change the axis labels as I think there are several different wheels and it would be good to compare wheels from different times (I aim to redo mine monthly).
It’s healthy to keep a well-balanced life. It’s great that you were able to point out the areas in your life that need work.
One way to get control of your time is to notice where you’re spending it. Keeping track for a day, week or month lets you know how much time you actually spend in those activities that nourish and enrich you.
Get a clear perspective on how you want to live your ideal life. Close the gap between the present and your desired success by figuring out your plans, your paths to your goals. Then you’ll find yourself living a balanced life.
I believe you are right. I must add for a balance life we should always try to achieve our goals. I think it is important.
I think we need to explore ourselves. Which area or field we excel and which one we failed. Assessing ourselves enables us to gain deeper understanding of what we want and who we want to become. Personal progress lies in our hands. So it should be us that make the first move otherwise we’ll just be stuck to where we are right now.
Wow! What a fantastic post that I came across. I was looking for a self development tools and things of that nature and happened to come across this post.
First off, thanks for posting this and thank you Michael for creating that Excel. I’m looking at different ways to teach some of my students the fundamentals of one’s life as well as ways to be observant of your different priorities in your life. Where you excel and where could use some work. This interactive wheel is perfect substitute for a previous course I had designed and was curious if I could use it for that.
Thanks again,
Erin Lewis
This is a great post, life is all about balances and not overdoing one part of your life. I teach this to my students all the time and implement the Wheel of Life into one of my lectures. In fact I’m in the process of doing a study in which examines a criminal’s wheel of life to determine commonalities between them. I hope that this test can show some insight into the what area’s are lacking in a criminals life and how we can possibly prevent actions in the future.
I appreciate you providing this post and I think I’m going to contact the gentlemen that created the Excel sheet to see if I can distribute it to my students.
This is an awesome activity. We teach this in our advanced cooking classes. I know what you are thinking, cooking classes? Yes, any chef that plans to be an executive chef has areas of their lives that they need to be aware of before they properly run a kitchen. The Wheel of Life is a great activity that allows for student/teacher interaction to getting to the bottom of where their problems may exist.
Erin,
Thanks for the comment, I’m glad you’ve found the post interesting. I hope you were able to develop your course suitably.
Criminal Justice Teacher,
Thank you for your comment, I’m glad you found the post useful. I have a tendency to get absorbed in one area of my life to the detriment of other areas and think this exercise helps me to recognise this.
Wusthof,
Thank you for your comment, I had no idea that the wheel of life was used so widely. The comments I’ve had on this post certainly show many people find it beneficial both personally and professionally.
Measuring development process only possible if your management relies on 360 degree feedback services.
360 feedback not only brings quick feedback but also tells the measures to know about business strategies and measurement process.
I agree that 360 feedback can be very valuable. My company did it for several years, but stopped after a reorganisation. Instead they are now working on encouraging staff to be happy giving detailed feedback on both colleagues and managers.