Wheel Of Life – A Motivation Guide By Paul J Meyer

The Wheel of Life is a component of positive psychology. This component originated from Tibetan Buddhism and it describes personal happiness and focuses on how to achieve balance in life.

Happiness and success are important factors of this concept. The idea of this concept originated from Tibetan Buddhism and then the founder of Success Motivation Institute, Paul J Meyer further developed it in more detail.

This concept is also known as a coaching wheel or balance wheel because it is often utilized to motivate or guide people.

The wheel of life consists of eight areas and these areas are supposed to be evaluated based on how a person spends his time and energy in each area and how satisfied he or she is in these different areas of life.

This evaluation leads to reflection of self, further leading to insight and change, if needed.

The eight areas are represented through a pie chart or a spider web. These areas are:

1. Business or Career- This area is about a person’s career prospects and goals. It is also called the ‘wheel of business.’
2. Finance- This area is about a person’s management, budgeting, saving, and investing money or finances. This area focuses on a person’s financial security.
3. Health- This area is about a person’s physical and mental health and well-being.
4. Significant other- This area pertains to an individual’s life partner, romantic partner, the happiness, trust, and understanding in the relationship.
5. Family and Friends- This area is about a person’s loved ones. Family and friends can be categorized into different areas, depending on the person’s preferences.
6. Fun and leisure- This area is about leisure time. It focuses on the free time that a person gets away from work and other chores.
7. Personal development- This area is about self-development and growth. It focuses on things that a person does for his or her personal growth.
8. Contribution to society- This area is about any social or community work that a person does to help society or support the community.

People need to focus on each part of this pie chart and evaluate what is working well for them and what is not. This evaluation helps to recognize and refocus on areas that need more attention and help. These areas can be customized and changed according to personal needs and wants.

How To Implement The Wheel Of Life?

1. Examine what roles you play in your life: An individual plays many roles about significant people in his life. Examples are – mother, wife, sister, daughter, teacher, colleague, boss, etc.
2. Ascertain your areas: Recognize the areas that are most important to you. See where you devote most of your time. Notice the roles that take up most of your time, space, and energy. Identify the areas that you prioritize. Examples of areas include career, family, friends, leisure, etc.
3. Create a pie chart or spider web diagram: After choosing the important areas, you can arrange them in the form of a pie chart and mention and label the categories.
4. Assess each category: After making the pie chart, evaluate how much time you are investing in each area of your life (represented by the pie chart). Rate the time given to each area from a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.
   It can also measure the amount of satisfaction you experience in every area i.e. 0 being very dissatisfied and 10 being very satisfied. Mention your rating/score on the specific areas. The wheel of life is based on the notion that the right balance between all areas of life can lead to happiness and satisfaction.
5. Connect the dots: After assigning scores to each area, connect the areas by connecting the dots throughout the circle. This connection of dots will give you an idea of how your wheel of life looks and whether it is balanced or not.
6. Compare and contrast with your ideal life scenario: In real life, priorities keep changing and sometimes one area needs more attention than the other. Evaluate your priorities and see what area needs more attention and focus. Mention ideal lie scenario scores on the pie chart.
7. Taking action: This pie chart now represents your actual life and ideal life. Notice the discrepancies and decide which areas of life need more work and time from your end. If there is any area of life you are devoting more time and attention than needed, evaluate your needs and take action accordingly.

Wheel of Life can be used by physically drawing out pie charts or worksheets. There are some online apps and websites that provide materials to practice the wheel of life as well. This activity is flexible as it can be tailored according to one’s preferred needs or desires.

Applications

• The wheel of life can be used to create a complete picture of a person’s life to evaluate their overall life satisfaction and fulfillment.
• The wheel of life can be used to understand problems and stressors in different areas of life.
• The wheel of life can be used to prioritize goals, break them down into smaller chunks, and set schedules for achieving goals. Goal setting can be done using this concept.
• The wheel of life can also be used as a rapport-building tool to gain insight into a person’s life and to build trust and familiarity.
• The wheel of life can be used to review goals and to understand whether goals are being met and if they are leading to satisfaction or happiness for an individual.
• The wheel of life can be used to gain a deeper understanding of the areas in one’s life.
• The wheel of life can be used to help people be kinder to themselves, by examining in what areas they lack self-love, or overly criticize themselves.
• The wheel of life can help identify in which areas one’s knowledge/skill gaps lie, to get a better career prospect or promotion.
• The wheel of life can be done to help understand relationships better – how much time and energy one is spending with which significant person.
• The wheel of life can also be useful to understand what one is looking for in a romantic relationship.

Conclusion

Balance and satisfaction are important factors in happiness. The balance between career, family, and personal development is essential for a smoother life.

This concept of the wheel of life seeks to help individuals by painting a picture of their lives and highlighting what needs to be worked on to ensure balance and satisfaction.

The wheel of life aims to create equilibrium and positive transformation. It tries to bridge the gap between where an individual is to where he or she wants to ideally be.

The wheel of life can help a working professional not just to up the career game, but also to achieve work-life balance.

It can help parents to understand their children better and facilitate growth. It can help a retiree rework his/her priorities and set new goals to seek fulfillment, after reaching this new phase of life.