Be Your Own Life Coach: Take Stock of 2019

As we near the end of the year, it can be a great time to take stock, and see what we achieved. Acting as our own Life Coach, we can ask ourselves: Did we move closer to our goals? Did we overcome challenges? Did we repeat mistakes? And so on…

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In life, we often have periodic reviews – our car goes in for a MOT, we might refresh and decorate a room in our house. We may attend a medical check-up and have an annual appraisal at work. Often though, we will not undertake any sort of review of our life and whether we are happy and moving forward.

Wheel of Life

If you work with a Life Coach, very often one of the first exercises they will get you to do, is a Wheel of Life. The wheel is generally sectioned into 8-10 pieces. Numbers are placed in inner circles of the wheel from 1-10. The idea being that you assess each area of your life, and give it a mark out of 10. One being where you are least satisfied, and ten being where you are happiest.

Build Your Own Wheel

You can create a wheel that is relevant to your life. These are some of the topics you might choose:

Finances, Romantic Love, Friendships, Family, Work, Wellbeing, Hobbies, Social Life, Spirituality, Personal Growth, Fitness and Studies etc.

What Can You Learn?

The wheel can be printed out and coloured in. It isn’t something that you should labour over. Rather, it should be something that you can complete quite quickly, with relative ease.

Having assigned each section a title, and a number based on satisfaction. It is easier to identify the areas of your life that need your attention.

You might also be surprised by how the areas needing improvement are connected. For example, if you are unhappy in your work, your relationship, social life & fitness levels may all be suffering. It demonstrates how having one area of life out of kilter, has a knock-on impact on other areas.

Next Steps

Having identified the areas that you need to work on, it’s time to make a plan.

You can determine what your priorities should be, by asking yourself – what is the current number, what would I like the number to be, and how important is it to me that I achieve that increase…

To make any goal/change stick, it is important to follow a set of ground rules.

Make the goal specific. Put a lot of detail around it. Really thinking about what you want and why.

The achievement should be measurable. You need to be able to check your own progress and know when you have achieved what you set out to do.

Inspiration – This is an important step, as when you are knee deep in the process, it can be hard to remember why you started. Keep focussed on how you will feel when you achieve your desired outcome.

Timing. It’s important that your goal has an end date. Making it easier to measure progress, and to know a finale is in sight.

The last step is to be realistic. It’s important to reach for a goal, but it should be achievable. Remember, you can only influence what’s in your control!