Finding the Balance in Life: Your Wheel of Personal Fulfillment
Welcome to the wheel of personal fulfillment.
Even though life is never as perfect as an evenly cut pizza pie, we can always raise our awareness in where we place our energy and focus. Personal fulfillment is holistic and requires a conscious placement of attention and action.
When you first think of your own personal fulfillment, you may only recognize the areas of your life that are top of mind for you, such as the ones you currently devote most of your energy to. What we often forget about are the areas of our lives that don't come as naturally to us, or are placed on the back burner for a number of reasons, yet contribute just as much to our overall well-being. Most of us have areas that we dominate, and areas that are a place for growth and opportunity. Life ebbs and flows, and as your situation changes, you may shift your focus into a different area. It's easy in this crazy life to get pulled in one direction or another, and leave an aspect of your life out of focus for a period of time.
Typically my clients come to me first to work on the career slice, but other parts of the wheel often need attention too. I either see: A) People giving less than full attention in all areas of their life, or B) People going extremely hard in one or two, and neglecting the rest. For the first type of person, I usually say that, how you act in one area is a good indicator of how you are living in other areas of your life. You may be holding onto old patterns and/or living in fear. The second type of person, which is common for overachievers, perfectionists, and all around hyper-focused individuals, can easily find themselves burnt out and/or energy depleted.
Some examples of being off balance are:👇🏽
Your business is booming... but you're not having any fun in your life.
You're going to the gym and eating healthy... but you're still stressed all of the time.
You're making a lot of money... but you hate the city you live in.
You love your career... but your health is taking a toll.
You love your spouse or partner...but your individual time is non-existent.
You feel luke-warm about your partner, city, and job. You neither hate or love.
You can easily assess yourself with a quick exercise. The key is to first determine the eight areas of life that are most important to you, including things you excel at AND areas you know you need but could also improve. Even consider areas like creativity, travel, mental health, or education. Define what each areas means to you. Spirituality to one person may mean meditating and to another attending a church, mosque, synagogue. Start checking-in with yourself every three months (make a calendar date) and determine where you're off balance. Rate each area on a scale of 1-10. 1 being completely out of sync, 10 being mastery.
Some questions to ask are:
What are my current life priorities?
What can I do to spread the energy and focus around more evenly?
What action steps can I add in immediately?
For any area rated 5 or below, ask yourself what would your life look like if it were 5 or above? What needs to change? What are 1-3 activities you can add, change, or subtract, in each area to give yourself more balance? Sometimes it takes sacrificing your more mastered areas, to give some love and time to areas needing you. Decide how you can make any modification from minor and quick, to transformational and long-lasting.
Say you're a single mom working hard to save a college fund for your kids, finding zero time for yourself. Sometimes it's just adding maybe an hour a day or week of fun time or spirituality to reconnect and center yourself.
Or maybe you're a consultant traveling every week to different cities. How can you ensure your health doesn't decline? What actions can you take, even as small as packing healthy snacks, to make sure you are more balanced throughout the week?
Another exercise you can do is ask yourself, "What are the patterns I exhibit across the wheel?" Meaning, if you eat poorly, date people who don't treat you right, and live in a space that's toxic, what does that say about your energy and focus? Sometimes the patterns aren't as extreme, but they usually show up for everyone.
For me personally, I've found that when I go all in on my physical health, like spending too much time at the gym or even worrying about calories excessively, I do less internal/spiritual growth, like reading, meditating, reflecting, and developing as a person. I always check in with myself. If I'm working too much in my business (or on my phone all of the time working), I sometimes neglect my relationships. And vice versa for all of these. How do I balance it again? Awareness and then action.
Which areas do you often forget about?
It's not easy always finding the balance, all of the time, but it's a little tool you can easily do when you feel OFF, to bring some more awareness into your day-to-day, and make shit happen.
If you're feeling like you need a little inspiration or guidance with your wheel, I'd love to offer you a catalyst coaching call, where in 60 minutes you will feel a mindset shift and be inspired to take action. Schedule your call here.
xx
Amanda