# The wheel of life: how to fill it in so something comes of it

> The exercise takes five minutes and usually ends with a colourful chart after which nothing changes. The value is in what you do with the lowest score.

The wheel of life is one of the simplest exercises used in coaching: split
your life into a few areas, score each from 1 to 10 and plot the scores on a
wheel. The shape shows at a glance where things are balanced and where
something is clearly missing. The idea is usually credited to Paul J. Meyer,
who created personal development programmes in the 1960s.

It is worth saying plainly what this is not: **the wheel of life is not a
psychological test.** There are no norms, no score that diagnoses anything,
and no evidence that filling in a wheel changes anything by itself. It is a
tool for ordering your own view, and it is good at that, because it forces you
to rate areas you tend not to think about until they start to hurt.

## Eight areas

Divisions vary; this one is the most common and enough:

health, work, money, family, relationship, friends, growth, rest.

Do not add fifteen areas. The more there are, the more the scores blur
together and the harder it gets to name the one to start with, which is the
whole point of the exercise.

## Four mistakes people make

**Scoring aspirations rather than the present.** The question is "how is it
today", not "how should it be" or "how would it look if I pulled myself
together". Aspirational scores produce an even, useless wheel.

**Comparing yourself with other people.** A ten is not somebody else's ideal
but yours: the state in which you would change nothing in that area.

**Treating the average as the result.** An average of 7 with one area at 2 is
a worse position than a flat 5 everywhere. The gaps between areas say more
than their sum.

**Stopping at the chart.** This is the usual ending. A wheel with no decision
attached is a nice picture from three months ago.

## What to do with the result

Take the lowest-scoring area and find **one thing you can do this week**. Not
a plan to fix the area, not a resolution to "look after my health", but
something concrete with a date: book the dentist, call the person you have not
spoken to in a year, add up what you actually spend on eating out.

If the lowest score calls for a change of daily rhythm rather than a one-off
action, it is a habit rather than a task - and then it helps to know
[how long forming a habit takes](/blog/how-long-to-form-a-habit) (a median of
66 days, not 21).

Come back to the wheel in a few months. The point of comparing is to check one
thing: whether the area you picked actually moved up a point.

## Fill in your wheel

The [wheel of life in Ordiarion](/en/tools/wheel-of-life) draws as you move
the sliders and names the lowest area underneath the chart. The scores stay in
your browser, so in a few months there is something to compare against. No
account, and the chart prints.

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Źródło: https://ordiarion.com/blog/wheel-of-life-how-to-use