Wheel of Life Assessment: The Wheel That Wouldn't Roll

It is Thursday evening, and a wheel of life assessment is the last thing on your mind, because nothing is exactly wrong.

You have answered the messages. Work is moving. The bills are paid. The week has been full enough that you could defend every hour of it.

But the gym bag has been riding around in the car since September. There is a friend you have meant to call for so long that calling now feels awkward. The guitar in the corner is slightly out of tune.

That is the strange problem this ten-minute exercise is good at finding: not a crisis, but a life that has become lopsided while you were busy keeping it running.

Ten minutes later, eight numbers and a crooked shape on a page can turn "something feels off" into something you can actually name.

The short answer: A wheel of life assessment is a ten-minute exercise. You score eight areas of your life from 1 to 10, mark the scores on a circle and join the dots. The shape shows where life is lopsided, and the biggest gap between "now" and "where I want it" is a good candidate for the change worth working on this year.

How to do a wheel of life assessment

The exercise is commonly credited to Paul J. Meyer, who founded the Success Motivation Institute and is said to have created it in the 1960s (BetterUp). Coaches have used versions of it ever since. You do not need a coach. You need a pen, ten minutes and some honesty.

The eight areas

• Health: sleep, energy, movement, how your body feels most days.
• Money: not how much you have, but how settled you feel about it.
• Work or study: whether your working hours feel well spent.
• Relationships: partner, family, friends, the people you would call at 2 a.m.
• Growth: learning, reading, getting better at something you care about.
• Fun: play, hobbies, the things you do for no reason at all.
• Home: the space you live in and how it feels to walk through the door.
• Purpose: whether your days add up to something that feels like yours.

Different versions use different slices. Swap any that do not fit your life.

Six steps

1. Score each area from 1 to 10 for today. Go with your first instinct; overthinking turns everything into a 6.
2. Mark each score on its slice, with 1 at the center and 10 at the rim.
3. Join the dots and look at the shape before you judge it.
4. In a second color, mark where you honestly want each area by year end. Not 10 everywhere.
5. Measure the gaps between the two shapes, area by area.
6. Circle the biggest gap and write one change that would move it.

Reading the shape

• A small, even circle often means a tired year. Nothing is broken, but nothing has much energy. Rest may be the first goal.
• A big, lopsided shape usually means one area is eating the others, very often work.
• One deep dent is useful. It is usually where a small change makes the biggest difference to how the whole year feels.

If a score is hard to pin down, ask a blunt question. Health: how many nights last week did I wake up rested? Relationships: who have I been meaning to call for months? Fun: when did I last lose track of time? Purpose: if this year repeated ten times, would I be glad? If Purpose turns out to be the dent, an ikigai exercise is a gentle place to start.

Reading two low scores

You do not need a worked-out story to see how the numbers turn into a decision. Suppose two areas come out lowest: Fun at 3, where you would like a 6, and Health at 4, where you would like a 7. Both gaps are wide, so both are candidates worth examining.

Pick the one you suspect would lift the others. If more sleep and energy would probably make room for fun anyway, Health is the place to start, and it gives you something you could prove: a short walk after lunch, three days this week, building toward one clear year-end target.

Notice what this does not ask of you. You are not trying to lift all eight areas at once. The wheel's job is not to make you score 10 everywhere. Its job is to help you choose one.

Keeping the wheel where you will see it again

A wheel drawn on the back of an envelope works. The risk is the envelope. Most wheels get drawn once and lost, and it is the second drawing, the one that shows a dent filling in, where the exercise pays off.

That comparison, the second shape laid against the first, is where the exercise earns its place. So we built the life wheel into The Life I'm Building, a goal planner you fill in by hand: the same eight areas, scored now and again at year end, kept in one book beside its monthly and quarterly reviews, so redrawing the wheel and comparing is already part of the year rather than something you have to remember to set up again.

Prefer to start whenever you are ready rather than on a printed date? There is also an undated edition.

Frequently asked questions