What is the Wheel of Life?

The Wheel of Life worksheet is a self-reflection exercise and life assessment tool often used as a starting point in setting new life goals. Sometimes referred to as a life balance wheel, it’s an essential tool used to assess your satisfaction and fulfillment in different areas of your life. The ultimate goal of using tools like the Wheel of Life is to set new life goals so you can live an intentional and balanced life and achieve greater happiness and fulfillment.

The Wheel of Life worksheet is one of many coaching tools often used in sessions with life coaches or personal development coaches as they guide you to assess your life and where you might want to direct more of your energy and focus. If you are looking for increased fulfillment in your life, this is a great place to begin contemplating the life changes you want to make.

How to Use the Wheel of Life Worksheet

Click below for the downloadable wheel of life template, print it out, and I’ll walk you through using the worksheet to assess each dimension of your life.

Assessing the Key Dimensions of Life

The Wheel of Life often includes the following 8 categories or life dimensions.

1. Love & Romance 

This category is for focus and attention on your romantic relationship. 

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• Do I have a romantic and loving relationship that brings me joy and fulfillment? 
• Do I feel seen and heard in my relationship with my partner?
• Do I feel like my most authentic self in my love relationship?
• Do I have a loving partnership with someone who cares about my wellbeing? 
• How do I feel about communication between my partner and I?

2. Family & Friends 

This category is for building deeper connections with your family as well as meaningful, authentic friendships.

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• Do I have meaningful friendships that feel authentic and genuine?
• Do I spend time with my closest friends?
• Do I make time for my family members?
• Do my friendships add meaning and value to my life?
• Do I have trusted friends with whom I can share both my wins and life struggles?

3. Health

The category for health includes not only physical health, but also mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. 

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• Do I make my health a priority?
• Do I move my body and have physical activity each day or do I live a sedentary lifestyle?
• Do I prioritize nutritious foods in my meals each day?
• Do I honor my mental and emotional wellbeing and take steps to take care of myself in these aspects of life?
• Do I have the physical, mental, and emotional energy to manage my daily responsibilities?

4. Work Life – Career or Business

The focus in this category of life is on your professional self – your work, career, or if you’re an entrepreneur, your business. Did you know that 68% of people are disengaged in their work? Do you feel that way? Do you have a goal to change careers, get a promotion, or start your own business?

Questions to consider when assessing this life category :

• Do I like what I do every day for work?
• Do I feel like I’m living my purpose?
• Do I add value to the world in some way with what I do for a living?
• Do I have passion for what I do in my work each day?
• Does my career or business make good use of my skills and talents and help me to reach my greatest potential?

5. Money & Finances

In this category of life, you assess the financial aspect of your life. Are you working toward certain financial goals? Do you want to refine your family budget, save for a desired purchase, learn to invest, or pay off debt?

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• What role do I play in my family’s finances?
• Do I have an emergency fund?
• Do I feel knowledgeable, stable, and secure in the way my finances are managed?
• Do I have a savings plan?
• Do I have a retirement plan?

6. Personal Growth

In this category of life, the focus in on your own personal growth and development. It’s for intellectual growth, emotional, and spiritual growth. Do you have skills you want to hone, topics you want to learn more about, books you want to read, or courses you want to take?

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• Do I consider myself a lifelong learner? If so, what am I doing to foster my growth?
• What activities do I participate in to continually learn and grow as a person?
• Is there a topic I’ve always wanted to know more about? 
• Are there skills I need to acquire to achieve my professional goals?
• Do I feel intellectually challenged or do I feel stagnant?

7. Physical Environment 

Physical environment is a category to assess how you feel about your physical surroundings, such as where you live, your work environment, and your home environment. 

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• Do I enjoy the location where I live?
• ​Is there a house project I’ve been putting off that would bring me joy, peace, or comfort to finally have it complete?
• ​Does my office need some sprucing up to provide a more peaceful work environment?
• ​Is my bedroom a soothing atmosphere conducive to rest and good sleep?
• Is there a small landscaping project I could do that would create a relaxing outdoor environment?

8. Fun and Leisure

This category is to assess if you have enough fun and pure enjoyment in your life. Life really doesn’t need to be all work and no play. Who doesn’t want more fun and leisure in their life?

Questions to consider when assessing this life category:

• What items have been on my bucket list / wishlist for a long time? What steps do I need to take to make them happen?
• Is there a hobby I’ve always wanted to pursue?
• How can I add fun and leisure into my daily life and not just reserve it for the weekend or vacation?
• What activities bring me pure joy?
• How can I add more fun and leisure into my life?

Assessing Your Life in Each Dimension Using the Wheel of Life Worksheet

Now let’s use this wheel of life exercise to assess the different areas of your life.

If you haven’t downloaded the wheel of life worksheet yet, do so now and print it out. I’ll walk you through using the worksheet to think about each area of your life.

Using the wheel of life worksheet, you’ll rate each of the 8 dimensions of your life on a scale from 1-10. You’ll assign a lower score for an area of life in which you feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied. You’ll assign a higher score in an area of life in which you are achieving your goals and feel fulfilled and happy. 

Fill in each of the life category segments on the blank wheel. For example, if you’ve assessed your Career or Business dimension of life as an 8, then fill in that segment of the wheel up to an 8. If you’ve rated your Health dimension as a 4, then fill in that segment of the wheel up to line 4, and so on.

Once the wheel is filled in, it gives you a visual representation of how you are currently assessing your life. It will visibly show you the categories of your life where you feel fulfilled and satisfied, along with the categories of your life where you might feel empty, depleted, unfulfilled, or unsatisfied. 

The completed wheel will highlight the dimensions of life in which some renewed focus, attention, and goal-setting might improve the quality of your life.

The Power of Living an Intentional Life

A fulfilling life often comes from balance, where you have meaning and enjoyment in many or all different areas of life. If we are focusing heavily in only one or two dimensions of life, we can begin to feel unbalanced and perhaps even empty. 

For example, if we are focusing all of our energy in the business or career category (maybe our family even calls us a “workaholic”), then we might be neglecting the health category, or the family and fun/leisure categories. Life isn’t meant to be all work and no enjoyment. If we aren’t prioritizing our health through adequate sleep, good nutrition, and exercise, we might develop a chronic illness. At that point, does success in our career or business even matter? Probably not. 

The Wheel of Life is a powerful tool and a great starting point for setting new life goals in the categories of life where you feel unsatisfied.

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

Lewis Carroll

The power of intentionality in goal setting is that you can design a life you love to wake up to each day. You can intentionally surround yourself with the kind of people you enjoy spending time with, you can do work you love to do and make good money doing it, you can live a healthy lifestyle, and you can prioritize the things that truly matter to you.

There is no one who can do this for you except – YOU. Although many people have used this quote, one of my favorite contexts is this:

“No one is coming to save you; no one is coming to make life right for you; no one is coming to solve your problems. If you don’t do something, nothing is going to change.”

Nathaniel Branden

A Question to Contemplate

Recently I heard this incredibly contemplative question – “If you woke up tomorrow and had complete amnesia – a total loss of both short-term and long-term memory – what would you think as you looked around at your current life?” 

Would you look at your friends and think – who are these people anyway, they aren’t very nice. They gossip about everyone in our community.

Would you go to your job and think – how on earth did I decide to do THIS every single day?

Or mid-conversation with your life partner, would you think, this person is not even very nice to me.

Would you look at your life and think, do I ever have ANY fun or relaxation at all?

OR – would it be the opposite? Would you think – wow, my life is quite amazing. I must have made some really great intentional decisions to wind up here with these people, doing this kind of work each day, living to my full potential, and having so much fun. 

Think of the Wheel of Life in this way. Give your life a truly honest assessment.

Next Steps After Completing the Wheel of Life Worksheet

Life Goal Setting 

Using the wheel of life tool, you can set new goals and begin to make meaningful change in your life. If you’d like to set goals and read about examples of changes, you can read more in this article all about life goal setting. It includes a Setting Life Goals Worksheet, which serves as a great resource and next step after you complete the Wheel of Life worksheet.

“To change your life, you need to change your priorities.”

Mark Twain

Other Helpful Articles and Worksheets

“Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step in your life.”

Steve Maraboli

About the Author

Melissa Therrien is a business coach who teaches busy, ambitious women how to make money doing something they love by turning their skills, experience, and passions into an online business.

She is also a personal development coach who guides people to rediscover who they are outside all the roles they hold, so they can make time for their passions, dreams, and goals, while also taking great care of their family. After all, we only get this one wild and precious life.

Melissa earned her MBA from the University at Buffalo and pivoted in her life to start the business she always dreamed about launching. She started her business while raising 3 active kids and still working in her executive career.

You can learn more about her coaching practice here at Live Each Day.

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