Discover the true you

Our blog on Life Coaching stirred a lot of interest. A number of you were curious about what kind of tools a coach uses. Actually, that depends on what area the client desires to work on. One tool we use if the client is unsure of where they’d like to start is the Wheel of Life Assessment. This exercise helps you see areas where your life is out of balance and where there’s need for change.

The first step is to rank your satisfaction in each of these areas of life from one to ten. The categories together create a picture of a balanced life for you. If necessary, you can split a category segment to add something that’s missing, or re-label an area to make the Wheel more applicable to your life.

 8 Most Common Life Areas:

• God: Your spiritual life
• Family: Spouse, children, significant other
• Work: Your career, ministry, volunteering
• Finances: Budget, income, investments, retirement 
• Living Environment: Home, apartment, office, car, etc.
• Personal Growth: What you do to learn and improve yourself 
• Health: Everything you do to take care of yourself
• Community: Friends, social life, recreation 

Using the Assessment: 

Once the assessment is filled out your coach would discuss some of the following general questions with you and see which area you’d like to work on.

• How do you feel about your life as you look at your Wheel?
• Are there any surprises for you?
• Which of these categories would you most like to improve? 
• What would make a lasting difference, not just a temporary one?
• If making this change was easy, you would have done it already. What makes it difficult?

More specific questions if you chose one of these areas:

God

• Describe your relationship with God. What is it like?
• What do you aspire to in this area? What is your ideal? 
• What is the gap? What’s missing?

Family

• What’s best about your marriage/family life? What would you most to like to see change?
• Paint me a picture of what a great marriage or family life would look like to you.
• What are you committed to in this area?

Work

• What makes you satisfied/dissatisfied with your work?
• What’s most important to you in a job? How well does your current job supply that?
• What needs to change?

Finances

• What led you to rank ‘Finances’ as a_______?
• Give me a quick overview of what’s going on in your financial life. What’s got your attention?
• What would you like to see change this year in your finances?

Living Environment 

• How do the things you own enhance your life? How do they detract from it?
• What in your environment bothers you or drains your energy? 
• If you could make one change in your living environment what would it be?

Personal Growth

• Where are you motivated to improve yourself or your abilities right now?
• What one new skill would make all the difference right now in reaching your dreams?
• What skills, attributes or areas do you want to develop this year?

Health (Self Care)

• How’s your health?
• What are you tolerating or coping with in this area?
• Where do you need to take better care of your body, mind, or emotions?

 Community 

• Describe your social life. How satisfied are you with that?
• What do you want in a friend? Where are those kind of people in your life?
• Tell me about the last time you planned some fun time?

Seeing these areas laid out before you with the ratings you’ve given them, should give you some idea of where you’d like to focus your efforts for change. Of course, many people come to coaching already knowing what they want to work on. Setting boundaries, dealing with obstacles, how to detox a toxic relationship, to name a few.

A take away assignment could be to brainstorm some actions to raise your satisfaction in the areas you scored lowest in, or would most like to improve.

I hope this was helpful and gave you some further insight into coaching. Maybe even some things to think about in your own life. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comment box. I’ll be happy to answer.