Assessing Your Life and Priorities
Have you ever used a Wheel of Life or completed a Life Audit or similar, to help in assessing your life and priorities? Maybe I need some help in assessing my life and priorities?
On Monday, around afternoon tea time, I was feeling quite proud of what I’d achieved in working on my business for the day. Then, I remembered that I had meant to do some more baking as it had all been eaten. I even said to my husband “I need to bake you something, I’ll do that next.” Anyhow, I had afternoon tea and continued on working on what I had been working on. Just before dinner time, I realised that I had meant to bake. Oh well, I thought, that will be first thing tomorrow.
Then on Tuesday, when we went to go for a walk, I noticed that the washing was still hanging on the line. Although I’d achieved things for my business, some of my other life priorities got neglected that day. It didn’t really matter. The baking eventually happened on Tuesday afternoon and the washing stayed on the line a little longer than planned.
This is one reason that I have my own business. It means I can be flexible and do other things when needed. This is particularly helpful as I do make most of our meals and snacks from scratch due to my husband’s food intolerances. Therefore I can assess the priorities for my life in any given day or week and give focus to the life priorities that need the most focus at that time
We often talk about having balance in life or work/life balance but in reality, this is hard to achieve. One area of life will often have more of our focus, time or energy. This may be for a season or at certain times and the area with the most focus may switch depending on circumstances. Doing a life audit can be a useful tool for assessing your life and thinking about what you want to prioritise.
Wheel Of Life Audit Tool
The main audit tool used in assessing your life and life priorities is a variation of what’s often called a Wheel of Life. As the name suggests it is a wheel shape or diagram with different wedges or spokes to measure where you feel you are at in different areas of your life.
I first came across a tool like this about 20 years ago when I was completing a Breakthrough Living course with Caleb Leadership Ministries. This particular wheel had 8 areas of life including family, finance, health, career, spiritual, community, personal development/education and recreation. We drew a circle with 8 wedges and coloured each wedge to represent where we assessed our level being for each of the 8 life areas. See sample below.
When we were introduced to the Coaching Audit Wheel in the Coach Mastery course I completed, each spoke of the wheel represented the different wheel of life categories. We were asked to brainstorm 6-8 of our own dimensions of our life to include on the wheel. These could have been roles we play such as wife, mother, ministry leader, friend etc, or areas of life that are important to you such as health, spiritual life, ministry, education etc or your own combination of these. It also had marks on each spoke at regular intervals to represent 1 near the centre of the circle and 10 at the outer edge of the circle. We placed dots on the spokes to represent where we assessed each life category to be for us. Then joined the dots to make a “spider-web” type line. We also added where we’d like to be in 12 months time. Then we reflected on what we noticed or what stood out for us. See samples below with “where you are now” marked on the left image and the blue “where you’d like to be in 12 months time” added on the right image.
Another tool that I’ve used a number of times in MOPS talks is the tree exercise, adapted from some of the Breathing Exercises in Breathe: Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life by Keri Wyatt Kent. In this exercise you draw a tree with main branches that represent the various obligations and commitments of your life, so you might have one large branch for each member of your family and for other major life areas. Draw smaller branches coming off each major branch to represent the things you do for each branch. It really illustrates how out of balance different areas might be. However, the reflection questions also helps you ponder what you might do to change, tweak or improve things.
How to use this type of tool in assessing your life
If you’d like to use this type of tool in assessing your life then decide whether or not you want to use a wheel of life or draw a tree or something else to represent your life. If you don’t want to draw a circle you can use this online version which has 8 editable categories with a rating scale from 1-10. Do you want to use suggested life categories or choose your own roles or areas of life that are important to you? Scott Jeffrey has a list of 11 possible categories or life areas to choose from, if you’re stuck. If you use a wheel do you want to colour segments or use dots on the spokes?
Complete which ever method you choose, in the way that you choose.
- Draw a 6-8 sectioned circle or tree with large branches representing each major life area
- Label each wedge/spoke of the circle or label each major branch with the life areas you’ve chosen.
- Mark in each wedge/on each spoke to assess where you feel you are now? Or add smaller branches to each larger branch to represent all that you do for each major “branch”
- Colour each wedge or draw lines to connect the dots.
- Add a different colour or different coloured line for where you’d like to be in 12 months time. Or reflect on how you’d like your tree to look in 12 months time.
- Reflect on how the image you made makes you feel? What do you notice or what stands out to you? Prayer of reflect on what might need to be changed or pruned in the different life areas.
You can also think about what you are thankful for in each area you’ve choosen, along with any challenges, frustrations or concerns. This can help you with assessing what you may want to change or add in each life area.
This sort of tool is just one the tools in my coaching tool box that I can draw on, to complement the non-directive, reflective questioning approach that I use in my coaching.
If you’ve used one of these tools and have noticed that you’d like help in one area or another of your life? If so, please contact me or book a free 20 min discovery chat to discuss how coaching might help you.
