Life balance

Following on from my post about what I want to prioritise in my new routine, I now need to explore how to get that into balance.

I find a generic wheel of life can be a good starting point, but most of them neglect physical health, which is why I created my own generic wheel of life for life, work and fitness.

I really like it as a starting point, but ultimately I find my coaching clients get most benefit from a version that’s fully tailored to their priorities, and uses language that really resonates for them.

Once a coachee has listed their priorities, I ask them to give each a number 1-10 for how much attention they give these right now. And then do the same again for how much attention they would like to give these in future.

There’s always a temptation to set everything they value to 10, but that’s just not realistic. We all have lives that are full, and just trying to add in more without working out how to make space is a recipe for stress and frustration.

So I try to help clients work through what would be a realistic balance of their time. Adding up their numbers makes it immediately obvious how much they’re trying to add to their load, and can help us identify a compromise that is workable.

I’ve got this down to a nice smooth process now so I can produce the chart live in a coaching session and immediately show people a visual representation of what they are saying to me about their priorities. The image for this post is an example, showing where I am, and where I would like to be.

One thing I immediately noticed is that my “future” shape is much more rounded – nothing really sticks out. This is often a good sign of a balanced wheel of life.

I’ve managed to keep a similar total score for before and after so that encourages me that this wouldn’t be taking on too much.

And I can also see clearly to me both the areas where I need to do more and the areas that I need to cut back to make space. So my next post will look at how I can make plans to increase what I’m doing in the areas of mobility, client outreach, and family and friends.