Wheel of Life – A Self-Assessment Tool

The Wheel of Life is a great exercise and tool for helping you create more balance and success in your life. It is often used in coaching and is a great foundation exercise when goal-setting.

Welcome to your Wheel of Life!

As a starting point for creating balance, happiness and success in your life, the Wheel of Life is the perfect tool to begin your journey. Using this tool, you will be able to reflect and gain some insight into the balance of your life and how satisfied you are in life’s different areas.


This Wheel of Life Exercise is not to be confused with the Buddhist Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life used in Buddhism focuses more on an awareness of your mental state. In our Wheel of Life that is commonly used in coaching and goal-setting, it’s purpose is to identify how you’re currently spending your time and how satisfied you are in the different categories of your life.

The Building Blocks of the Wheel of Life

Essentially, the Wheel of Life is divided into different areas or categories that are important to you. What you see above is a common example of the Wheel of Life, split into major categories of life including Business/Career, Finances, Health, Family & Friends, Romance, Personal Growth, Fun & Recreation, and Physical Environment. There is a scoring system behind using the Wheel, where you simply reflect and rate your satisfaction levels out of 10, where 1 is closest to the centre of the circle and 10 is at the edge of the circle.


Note that the categories on the Wheel are a suggestion. You will find that with the above you will be able to score yourself in the majority of key areas in your life.


Remember, this is about you finding happiness and balance in your life so it will need to be clear and simple for you to understand.


One of the biggest benefits of the Wheel of Life is the pictorial representation it gives of your satisfaction with life. When your Wheel is completed, it will give you a spider-like diagram or ‘inner-circle’ of your satisfaction levels and allows you to quickly and easily identify any gaps between where you are now and where you want to be.


Now that you understand the building blocks of the Wheel, let’s go ahead and actually complete it!


Before we get started, this post has a supplementary tool which can be found in the Success Starter Toolkit. Enter your details below to gain access to the Success Starter Toolkit and download your free Wheel of Life templates.

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Step 1 – Setup

Print off the Wheels to use as a template, or simply draw your own on a piece of paper.

Step 2 – Complete the Wheel

Score your satisfaction levels against each of the different categories you have on your Wheel. Take your time doing this, I would recommend 15 minutes or so. Put yourself in a place with no distractions and reflect on your life as a whole. To help you with this exercise I have provided some thought prompter’s.


Business, Career & Studies: Is your career where you want it to be by now? Are you heading in the right direction?


Finance & Wealth: Are you earning enough income to satisfy your current needs? Are you financial setup for future growth in wealth?


Health & Fitness: How physically healthy are you? Are you satisfied with your level of fitness? Are you satisfied with your diet?


Social & Friends: Are your friends supportive of you? Are you engaging friends and socializing to your satisfaction levels?


Family: Is your family supportive of you? Are you supportive of your family?


Love: Do you feel loved? How often are you expressing love to others?


Recreation & Fun: Are you enjoying your life and making it fun? Are you satisfied with the level of activity that you do?


Contribution: How would others rate your contribution to society or them as individuals?


Personal Growth: How focused are you on personal growth? Are you satisfied with your direction? Are you trying new experiences and seeking to learn?


Spiritual: How connected are you to the inner and outer world? Are you satisfied with your relationship with your spiritual being?


Self-Image: Do you think of your abilities highly? Do you respect and love yourself? Do you appreciate yourself?

Step 3 – Reflect

You should now have a completed Wheel of Life. Take a moment to appreciate your Wheel of Life. What does it look like? Are there any surprises to you?


If you have scores of 8 to 10 for any of the categories, congratulations! You are very satisfied in this particular area. It’s important you maintain what you are doing to ensure you remain satisfied in this area, however don’t overlook that there may be areas for improvement. This is important to ensure you are not limiting your potential for even further growth and satisfaction in this area.


If you have scores of 5 to 7 for any of the categories, you are reasonably satisfied in this particular area but there is definitely opportunity to explore ideas to move this up the scale.


If you have scores of 0 to 4 for any of the categories, you are not very satisfied in this particular area and you will need to explore ways of enhancing your satisfaction here. No need to get down about these scores though, as scores of 0 to 4 are full of opportunity! I find this as quite exciting when someone has a lower score as often is the case the individual has not fully explored opportunities that are available to them. It’s also the area where the individual can grow the most and get the most value!

Step 4 – Action!

You now have a visual snapshot of how satisfied you are in different areas of your life. Through reflection, you have now identified your biggest gaps between where you are now and where you would like to be.


Commit yourself to taking action TODAY. What are the specific actions or steps that you are going to take to enhance your satisfaction in your desired area? Write what you will do down on the same piece of paper that your Wheel is on. Keep your Wheel close by in a place that you can easily refer to on a daily basis.


Track your progress! The Wheel provides a snapshot in time of your satisfaction levels and ultimately happiness. Complete the Wheel on a regular basis so you can easily track your progress. I recommend at least once every 6 months, depending on what your goals are and when you have aimed to achieve them.

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