Wheel
of life

01 What is the wheel of life?

A self-check coaches often start with: a circle split into areas of life, like career, health and money, each shaded out to how satisfied you are with it right now. The finished shape shows what’s going well and what’s been left behind.

It’s credited to Paul J. Meyer, who founded the Success Motivation Institute in 1960. Leadership Management International, a company he also founded, still uses a six-area version and holds “Wheel of Life” as a trademark in the US; ONA isn’t connected with it. The eight-area wheel most people know grew out of coaching practice later, and coaching guides encourage adapting the areas to your life.

The Buddhist wheel of life, the bhavachakra, is something else: a teaching image about the cycle of rebirth that happens to share the name.

02 What are the 8 areas of life?

There’s no official list. The eight most coaching guides start from are career, money, health, friends and family, romance, personal growth, fun and your surroundings. ONA’s eight are close to those, with Self Image in place of romance. Each comes with a question to help you score it.

The eight areas in ONA

• Career Work, study, whatever you’re building. On Sunday night, how much are you looking forward to Monday?
• Health Sleep, food, movement, how your body feels. How do you feel when you wake up on most mornings?
• Wealth Money in, money out, and what’s left over. Do you know where last month’s money went, and would you spend it the same way again?
• Social Family, friends, and how close you actually feel. Who would you call with good news, and when did you last call them?
• Growth What you’re learning, and who it’s making you. What have you learned lately because you wanted to?
• Fun What you do purely because you like it. When did you last lose an afternoon to something you enjoy?
• Self Image How you talk to yourself when nobody’s listening. What does the voice in your head say when you slip up?
• Home Where you live, and how it feels to come back to. What’s the first thing you notice when you walk in?

Other versions use anywhere from six to ten areas, often splitting friends and family apart, or adding spirituality or giving back. Whichever you use, score the same ones each time, so you can compare.

03 How do you score the wheel of life?

Give each area a number from 1 to 10 for how satisfied you are with it today: 1 is not at all, and 10 is as good as you’d want it. Take the first number that comes to you, before the one you think it should be.

A 10 means different things to different people. If you’re stuck on an area, picture what a 10 would look like for you and score against that.

Some guides score the time or attention each area gets instead, and some start at 0. Any of these works if you score the same way every time. When you first score your wheel in ONA, it asks “Where are you right now?” and goes from 1 to 10.

04 How do you read your wheel of life?

Look at the shape first. Coaches ask: if this were a real wheel, how bumpy would the ride be? Most people’s first wheel is lopsided.

A balanced wheel isn’t all 10s, and some seasons ask more of one area, so a dip there can be fine. Look out for surprises: if a score came out lower than you expected, start by asking why. Three questions to ask your wheel:

• Which score surprised you most?
• Which area, if it moved, would lift the others?
• Which low score is fine for now, given the season you’re in?

05 What do you do with your wheel of life scores?

Pick one area. The lowest is a good place to start, and so is the one that would make the others easier, like Health when everything else runs on your sleep. Set one goal for it you could reach in a week or two, and take a small step toward it each day. Here’s a goal that size for each area:

• Career: leave on time, every day this week.
• Health: vegetables on your plate every dinner.
• Wealth: no spending after nine.
• Social: one real conversation a day.
• Growth: three lines about the day, before bed.
• Fun: one song, loud, every day.
• Self Image: get dressed like someone’s coming.
• Home: dishes done the night they’re used.

Leave the other areas as they are for now. Chasing all eight at once is how a plan gets dropped by Thursday, so they wait their turn. The guide to one goal at a time has more on why, and the one on getting your life together has a checklist for every area.

That’s how ONA works: one area, one goal and one small thing a day, for a chapter of 7 days to start. How it works has every step.

06 How often should you do the wheel of life?

There’s no fixed rule. Guides suggest anything from every few weeks to every three months. Score it again after you’ve worked on something, and compare the two wheels to see what moved.

ONA asks you to score it again at the end of every chapter: after 7, 14 or 30 days, or sooner if you close it early.

07 Is the wheel of life scientific?

Not as a measure. It’s a reflection tool: your scores show how each area feels to you right now, and they aren’t a measurement, a psychological test or a diagnosis. What it does well is make you look at every part of your life at once.

The idea behind it has some support: in a 2010 study, people who spent their time more evenly across areas of their life, or closer to how they’d like to spend it, reported higher well-being. If an area weighs on you more than a number can say, talk to a doctor or a therapist.