5 Ways To Use The Wheel of Life Assessment In Your Coaching Business

One of the most useful coaching tools is called the Wheel of Life exercise is one of the most useful coaching tools.  Its effectiveness lies in its simplicity and you may have learned of it in your original coach training.

If you’ve never heard of this coaching tool and technique before let me give you a brief description of how it works. I’ve included the standard method commonly used in this blog post and I’ve added 4 more creative ways you can use this tool to help you deliver great coaching sessions.

1. The Wheel of Life

Using this wheel is a great way for life coaches to start with a new client because it gives them a birdseye view into their life. They might be feeling dissatisfied, stuck or disgruntled, but they can’t put their finger on exactly why. They don’t know what’s not working for them and they don’t know what to do next. This coaching technique helps clients understand their life balance and gain clarity so they can begin removing their blocks and moving forward. I always include this assessment tool in my welcome pack and use it to start the coaching process.

Have a look at the diagram below. You will see a circle that is divided into eight equal sections. Each section has a separate label.

• Family and Friends
• Romance and Significant Other
• Finances
• Physical Geography
• Health
• Personal Development
• Career
• Fun and Recreation

The centre of the circle is zero and the outer edge is rated at a 10. Where zero is as bad as it can be – it couldn’t possibly be any worse and 10 is the ultimate in awesome.

Your role is to ask the same question for each section of the circle:

On a scale of 0 – 10, how satisfied are you right now in this area of your life?

Tell them they are only rating their satisfaction right now, not last week or 6 months from now. Also tell them there is no perfect answer, encourage them to not get all left brain logical. If they start to waffle, ask them what’s the number that popped into your head?   

Next, they connect the dots and make a shape inside the circle.

This shape represents their level of satisfaction right now.

The next step is to have them look at the physical shape that they’ve drawn. And ask them:

• -What do you notice about the shape?
• -What’s it like driving your life on a wheel like this?
• -Is this a surprise?
• -What are you learning?

What do you, the coach notice about their completed Wheel of Life? Are they living a tiny squished boring life with very little satisfaction? Are they very satisfied in one area and dissatisfied in many others? Is there balance in their life or is it bumpy?

Ask them to keep a copy of this Wheel of Life template so they can look back at it from time to time.

Your client will learn a lot about their life by looking at this birdseye view. It will also help them to pinpoint what area of their life they want to focus on, any areas they want to begin finding balance, and this will help them to set meaningful goals.

2.  The Wheel of Progress

The second use for the Wheel of Life is to help them see how far they’ve come.

Re-do the exact same process that I just described after they’ve been coaching with you for a few sessions or when they’ve at a reached a goal.

It’s interesting to see how their life has evolved and how they are spending time. You can overlay those two and get a really great concrete sense for exactly what has shifted in their life and give them even more motivation.

3. The Meaningful Goals Wheel

Use the Wheel of Life in goal setting to help your clients choose which of their goals are more meaningful.  

Begin with the first step. Have them assess how they are in their life right now

Next, have them project their level of satisfaction in each area of their life when they’ve achieved a goal they are considering.

For example, maybe one goal is to change careers.

Project into the future, ask them to complete the Wheel of Life for all pieces of their life by rating the level of satisfaction they anticipate they will have.

If they change careers to something more satisfying, the level of satisfaction in the career area will be higher, are the other areas of their life improved too? Or is there a downside? Perhaps they might make less money so they will have a lower rating in Finances or they know they will need to devote more hours so their Friends and Family section may be impacted.

They are going to find out quickly whether this goal is going to increase her overall fulfilment or if it’s just a whim that sounds good at this moment.

4. The Deep Dive Wheel

A fourth way to use the Wheel of Life is a tool to have a deeper look at one big area life

For example, it could be the Wheel of Business for an entrepreneur.

Label each piece of the wheel with all the parts of your business.  

• Marketing
• Customer Relations
• Finances
• Operations and Systems
• Creativity
• Team
• Personal Development and Education
• Location

Now do an assessment for the state of each area of their business.

This wheel of business will give your client a practical representation of the state of their business and point them to any weak areas that need to be improved.

5. The Wheel of Big Goals

You could make a Wheel of Life to represent the planning and strategy needed to tackle a big goal.

For example, maybe the person has a goal to do solo travel for three months. What do they need to consider, plan and act on to make the sabbatical happen?

Then you can jot down related actions or considerations in that section.

Some ideas for this example of solo travel for three months.

• Work

Arrange to take an extended time off work.

What is my company’s policy?

When do I need to speak to my boss?

• Finances

How much do I need to save?

Do I need a foreign bank account?

What is my travel budget?

• Home

Do I need to find a house sitter?

Rent my home out on Airbnb?

What happens with my bills and mail?

• Health

Do I have any health concerns I need to consider when planning what countries to visit?

Medications?

Vaccinations?

Where do I buy medical insurance?

I’m curious what other ways you can think of to use the Wheel of Life exercise?

I’ve created a freebie that you can download. It’s called Ways To Use The Wheel Of Life in Your Coaching Practice Today. It contains a workbook and printable templates you can use to bring more variety to your coaching calls. Grab your Wheel of Life PDF Template, including a blank Wheel of Life and other free coaching tools.