I’m back with another goal setting post for the month of January because honestly, it just fits. Everyone is going crazy right now over setting new goals, and trying to make progress towards those goals. What are you using to help you come up with these goals though? Today I want to provide you with a personal development tool that’s perfect for helping you brainstorm meaningful goal ideas. By the end of it, you’ll have a well rounded set of goals that’ll help you to grow in all areas of your life. What good is a goal if it’s not helping you grow in some way, shape, or form?

The Life Balance Wheel aka the Wheel of Life, is a simple, yet powerful, self assessment tool commonly used in coaching and counseling. The tool is great for self reflection, and gives you a visual representation of how balanced your life is. Ya’ll know I’m all about the visuals, so anything that gives me a visual picture of my life in any way I absolutely love. I also like to see things all in one place, and this tool allows you to see how well you’re functioning in 8 different areas of your life, all on one super convenient worksheet. It gives you the opportunity to reflect on how satisfied and fulfilled you are in each life area. Then, with that information, you can set goals in the areas that aren’t so fulfilled, in order to increase your overall life balance. So get ready to become your own personal growth coach! Don’t worry, I’ll guide you through this whole thing

How to Use The Life Balance Wheel

1. Set up your wheel

To make this easy for you I created a Life Balance Wheel worksheet that you can download to get started. You can also draw your own Life Balance Wheel in your journal or wherever else you like. Do what feels best for you. All you have to do is draw a circle, and divide it into 8 equal parts. Then, label each section with a life area. This is where this gets totally customizable. If you download my worksheet, I included two versions; one with the life areas that I used, and a blank version so you can come up with your own. The life areas I focused on were:

• Physical Health
• Spirituality
• Relationships
• Creativity
• Personal Development
• Career & Finances
• Overall Life Vision
• Emotional Well-being

Feel free to use these, or switch them up and make it your own. You may have something in particular that you want to work on that you’d like to add on your wheel. You don’t need to use all 8 sections either. I’ve seen some versions of the wheel where there are only 6 parts. If you cannot think of 8 different areas you’d like use, or if 8 just seems too overwhelming, try starting with 6 instead. Just make sure that all of the categories you choose are meaningful to you so that you can create meaningful goals through your reflections.

Other possible life areas:

• Blog/business
• Mental Health
• Self Care
• Education
• Home Life & Family

As you can see all of these categories can fit within the more broad categories that I chose. It really depends on how specific you want to be

Related: 6 Tips to Help You Make Self Care a Priority in Your Life

2. Fill out your wheel & connect the dots

(excuse my lack of editing skills when it came to making this diagram. I tried my best lol. It’s SO much easier to draw the dots and lines on paper)

Now it’s time to think about how fulfilled you are in each life area. Draw a dot between the center, and the outer edge of the wheel to indicate how fulfilled you feel in each life area. The center of the wheel represents 0% and the outer edge represents 100%. Make sure you put a lot of thought and reflection into this process to create the most accurate representation of your life balance. After you place all of your dots, connect them all together in a circle. Basically, once you connect all the dots, you form your wheel (which isn’t exactly shaped like a wheel, but you get the point). It’s totally okay if you’re looking at a crazy shape when you’re done. That’s normal! Your wheel is unique to you, which is why it’s so helpful in setting meaningful, personalized goals.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding where to draw your dots:

• Physical health – How’s your overall diet? Any changes you’d like to make to the way you eat? How do you feel during the day (tired, energetic, fatigued, etc)? How’s your quality of sleep? How often do you exercise?
• Spirituality – How in tune with your beliefs are you? How closely connected do you feel to what you believe in?
• Relationships – Do you have friends/family that you can talk to? How satisfied are you with the quality of relationships in your life? How often do you spend quality time with your loved ones? How easily do you connect with others?
• Creativity – Do you have a creative outlet? Are you utilizing it? How satisfied are you with your creative abilities?
• Career & Finances – How satisfied are you in your current career? Are you in your dream career? or do you need to switch paths? How comfortable are you with your current financial status?
• Personal Development – Are you actively working on your personal development? How well do you really know yourself? How satisfied are you with your personal growth lately?
• Overall Life Vision – How happy are you with the direction your life is headed? How clear is your vision for your future? How satisfied are you with the steps that you’re taking towards that vision?
• Emotional Well-being – How balanced do you feel emotionally? How aware are you of your emotions? How do you process/cope with your emotions?

How to use the Life Balance Wheel to Set Meaningful Goals

3. Reflect and set meaningful goals

Look at your completed wheel and focus on its shape. How can you create a more evenly shaped wheel? Which life areas require more of your focus right now? In my opinion, it’s actually a good idea to start from the outside edge of the wheel (your highest points) and work your way towards the middle (your lowest points). It’s less overwhelming this way, and gives you a chance to reflect on your strong points and the growth that you’ve already made.

Acknowledging your strengths is just as important as identifying your areas for improvement

Now it’s time to set goals for each life area. Yes you can even set small goals for those areas where you rated yourself very highly, because there’s always room for growth! Here are some ideas to get you started with brainstorming:

• Physical health
  • Exercise for 30 minutes, 3x per week
  • Meal prep for lunch every week
  • Create a consistent work out schedule
  • Try a new form of exercise such as yoga, pilates, zumba, etc.
  • Drink 8 cups of water per day
  • Take a multi-vitamin daily
• Spirituality
  • Strengthen prayer life
  • Explore new spiritual practices (crystals, smudging, incense, meditation, etc.)
  • Form relationships with others who have similar spiritual beliefs
• Relationships
  • Spend time with close friends at least twice a month
  • Have a small family get together once a month
  • Identify the people you are closest to and make an effort to talk to them often and reach out for support when you need it
• Creativity
  • Explore a new creative outlet
  • Actively practice your creative outlet a few times a week
  • Find a community of people who consider themselves to be “creatives” and form relationships with them
• Career & Finances 
  • Start a side hustle
  • Get promoted at work
  • Go back to school for a new degree/certification
  • Save $1,000 a month
• Personal Development
  • Start a daily journaling practice
  • Explore more about your personality type
  • Listen to an inspirational podcast twice a week
  • Read one self-help book a month
  • Start a daily mediation practice
• Overall Life Vision 
  • Create a vision board to reflect on what you really desire in life
  • Reflect on your progress towards your goals every month
  • Explore different opportunities and possibilities for your life. Push yourself out of your comfort zone.
• Emotional Well-being 
  • Practice self care for at least 10 minutes daily
  • Create a self care ritual
  • Try counseling/therapy
  • Surround yourself with positive, like minded individuals

 Related: How to Stay Focused on Your Goals & Rock the New Year

These goals aren’t super specific (most of them anyway) but they’re designed to get you thinking and brainstorming about goals for your own life. I know it helps me personally to see examples in order to inspire my own ideas.

You can complete the Life Balance every month and track your progress that way. You can even do it on the same sheet of paper, but using a different color for the updated wheel. That way your progress will be reflected all in one spot and will be super easy to see! Yay for tracking progress!

Comment below what you think your lowest point, and your highest point are! What do you think you need to do in order to raise your lowest point?