Each year, we begin our working year off using this exercise. What this exercise enables us to do is to identify which key areas of our life needs improving, and gives us a rating to select which ones to priotise.
This is an important exercise to give you direction. In short, the Wheel of Life is a tool to assist professionals in identifying what is important to them and how well they feel they are fulfilling that particular area of their life. Following the Wheel of Life activity, we use our findings to create our own personal dreamboards to guide our goals throughout the year.
To complete the exercise, print out the image below and rate how satisfied you are with each area of your life (represented by each segment of the wheel) by marking a point along the wheel from 0 to 10.
Once this is complete, join the dots between segments and review using the questions below:
- Does this surprise you?
- Which areas are higher than you thought?
- Which areas are lower than you thought?
- Does this line up with what you value?
- Which areas are most important to you?
- How can you make changes to improve those areas?
- What changes can you make in the next three months in two of those areas?
- Who can you share your commitment with?
Your answers to these questions should set you up on the path to develop SMART goals, to set your direction for the year. In doing this, you can turn an area of development you wish to focus on, into an actionable goal to get you from Point A (where you are) to point B (where you want to be). Its important to ensure the activities in your SMART goals are just that – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Sensitive. Otherwise you will find yourself struggling to make headway in your area of development.
When we get the team together for this activity, we follow this with a Dreamboard activity. This is a great way to spark creativity and fun while thinking of your goals for the year. Having energy and excitement are key ingredients for motivation. This activity is simple – find pictures and visuals which speak to your intention/goal. Whether you want to place pictures into a simple word doc or for those who are more traditional, a magazine and some scissors!
Below is an example of some dreamboards which came out of our Wheel of Life activity in January! Can you guess what the three key areas are which our examples are focusing on?
The key to these activities is not only engagement, but discipline! The dreamboard should serve as a tangible reminder sitting on your desk or set as your screensaver to remind you of your goals and keep you on track.
This is why we do the Wheel of Life and Dreamboard activity together as a company and a group. It enables us to connect with each other and hold each other accountable for our goals and give us support in achieving them!
As we enter in the second quarter of the year, we will be inviting everyone back together to share the progress of their goals and areas they may need to improve on.
The Wheel of Life activity is a key activity we involve in many of our programs, especially those where leading selves is prominent.