Identifying and Developing Balance
Using concepts from the Wheel of Life to bring awareness and set goals
How do you define “life balance”?
What categories do you think of that are important to you?
There’s a common coaching practice derived from the Wheel of Life (first made in 1960 by Paul J Meyer) that helps you perform an assessment of the balance in your current life. Here’s a quick example visual, which I’ll then follow up with background.
This is but an example of different categories that you can assess. The general idea is that when important areas of your life are out of balance, it prevents you from pursuing happiness.
My coach introduced me to this concept in early 2023 as a framework to set goals.
The goal setting exercise is to take 8-10 categories and put 3 goals for each category.
The above sample categories could be a way you approach this exercise, although I’d say the minimum to happiness is having goals in 5 core categories - 4 of them are the same ones that Arthur Brooks outlined in his 2023 book “Build the Life You Want”. Those 4 categories are:
Family
Friends
Work
Faith/Spirituality
The 5th category I’d say is a minimum requirement is Health.
What types of goals do you set?
Name your balance gaps.
As you explore Family goals, think about how much time you spend with close and extended family members. Are there things you can commit to doing to increase the meaningfulness of your relationships with family?
As you explore Friendship goals, keep in mind that goals might be toward any of the typical three types of friendship (1) friendships of utility, (2) friendships of pleasure, and (3) friendships of virtue.
As you explore Work goals, think about skills to be developed that may help you progress toward your bigger career goals.
As you explore Faith/Spirituality goals, you may know where you have gaps although I recently listened to a great podcast with Trevor Noah and Rainn Wilson where they explored spirituality in a really engaging way.
For your Health goals consider these to be many of the topics I try to cover here on the Toward Wellth substack - Diet, Sleep, Exercise, Meditation (which I also mentally merge into the spirituality focus).
You may split categories, you may add categories. Some examples are:
Physical Environment - what things you might adjust in the physical environment around you - everything from landscaping through rearranging furniture, renovating a room, etc. I moved around my office the last two years and it helped me to feel increasingly more settled while working.
Finances - This one likely should be part of your core goals, unless you’ve just got this one already on lockdown. If not, maybe “reduce revolving debt by 25%” could be a goal.
Romance - what things might you do to improve your romantic life?
A Special Project - for me, Toward Wellth was my special project… and I set up goals to (1) get a final draft of a business plan, (2) evaluate partners, and (3) submit at least one grant proposal.
Travel - Most people enjoy travel. It’s also a way to experience different cultures in an immersive way. Having goals like “take one trip with my bestie”, “try a different cruise line”, or “plan my own itinerary to visit Vancouver” are examples.
Community - The ways you interact with the world around where you live, where the people are not [yet] part of your friend circle. Find a way to volunteer, find a way to participate in community events, explore your local community.
These are but a few ways to think about the different categories of life activity - and in reflecting to make your goals, you also are able to thoughtfully assess where, perhaps, you are not balanced in your life. Perhaps you are stuck in a cycle of dedicating all your development to work goals - or spending all of your time taking care of a loved one - without having a balance of your own health - or nurturing your friendships.
I do this activity on a large whiteboard, making a 3x3 cube of 9 categories, with 3 goals under each. I then think about them, then ultimately put them into a PowerPoint slide (that’s easy to print)… and I have mine printed out to where I can see it every day. I also keep an abridged version of it in front of my daily planner (for when I do my 10 minutes of planning) to remind me that maybe I need to prioritize something that is out of balance.
Good luck with the Wheel of Life - and setting goals!