Enhance Your Leadership Abilities with the Wheel of Life: A Practical Tool for Transformation
A tool that I often use as a certified Executive Coach is the Wheel of Life. The concept is simple but remarkably effective.
Back in the day during my coach training, it was one of the very first tools that was introduced to us and it looks like this:
We each sat down with our pie chart in front of us and the goal is to quickly rate each category of your life on a scale from 1-10. Just from a gut reaction of what number you are at, not taking more than 5 minutes to do the whole thing. 1 being barely existent, 10 being this area could not be any more perfect.
Usually, people come to me with a pretty specific goal that they want to work towards. You have become aware that an area of their life is no longer working - or the desire for more is too great to ignore.
Whether it's personal or professional, people typically face the greatest challenges in one of these five domains:
Purpose / Leadership Trajectory
Health
Finances
Love
Perceived Criticism
Which of these resonates the most with you? Or immediately jumped out - like, “ah, yes, that’s the one!”?
I have found that in my one on one work of coaching, people typically focus on one or two areas that they would like to improve and/or eradicate, in the terms of criticism in terms of self, or perceptions of others.
As we prioritize these specific areas and establish clear action steps, my clients begin to observe improvements in other categories too. Either from a heightened sense of well-being or maybe just the trickle down effect of when you start working in one area, it starts affecting others.
This works within your leadership as well as within your work setting.
As a Leadership Coach, I’ll have you rate yourself in the top 10 Leadership Qualities and I have you manager do the same.
I often find in the results, that your manager may rate you much higher than you would rate yourself in certain categories. Then my goal for our work together, is that when we are complete YOU will feel about yourself and your work at the same level as your boss thinks about you. We decrease the inadequacy or doubt, and move to a place of confidence and authenticity in your work.
Another thing that may happen after our work together, is that some categories may GO DOWN in the rating scale.
When this happens - it’s usually because of one of two things:
You rated yourself high in an area, thinking that was true for you. But as we dig in and do the work - you actually find that your perception of those things might have shifted and the number self-corrects. I see this with a lot of Leadership Clients, they’ll rate themselves at a 9 in communication or self-awareness, but through our work together, they realize that they actually have more room for improvement than they thought - or awareness begets wanting more awareness and/or deeper understanding. OR
That area wasn’t actually a focus for them. Someone who might rate quite high in “fun”, is now spending more of their time working towards a project or on themselves. The “fun” factor might go down, but it’s by choice now, as you are concentrating your action and time on other areas that have more value for you.
I tell you all of this, so that you too can think of if there is something out there that you want.
Now, onto the exercise!
Grab a sheet of paper and go through these six steps.
1.Draw it out. Draw a pie with 8 quadrants, or just write down the categories in a list (from the image above). As you look at each category, quickly think of a number and write it down. Your intuition and the first number that jumps out at you will usually be right.
The important thing is to make sure that you are rating this on your scale of contentment or reality.
Example: If you are thinking about fun & recreation and you are quite content with what your level is at - but then you start thinking about people on social media who look like they have a lot more friends, or go on better vacations, etc. you might rate yourself lower because you aren’t experiencing those things.
Or as an introvert, you might scale yourself lower from comparison to an extroverted leaders’ executive presence, but I want you to look at what this is actually true for you, not to compare yourself to how others live their lives or show up, but what truly feels right for YOU.
Bonus exercise, also rate yourself in the top 10 Leadership Traits.
2. Clarity. Which area(s) do you want to focus on and what number would you like to be at (ie. currently at a 5 would like to be an 8). Now imagine, if you were at an 8.
- what would your life look like, feel like, how would you know you were at that number?
-write it down somewhere, draw some pictures, whatever feels good to you to expand upon your vision.
Then see if you can tie it to a value of yours. Is it freedom, security, love, being in service?
Here’s a hint: if it is temporary, a cost, or you can cross it off a checklist then it’s a desire or a want. If it’s free, eternal and omnipresent then it’s a value. Here’s a list of values to help you clarify what you might want to feel. https://www.mindtools.com/a5eygum/what-are-your-values
3. Boundaries. What do you need to say YES to and/or what do you need to say NO to, in order to create space for what you want? Write two columns with a yes and a no. Write down whatever comes to you.
4. Relationships. Who might feel like they have a say in this area of your life? These might be actual people or the scary they who are just out there in the world and within your imagination, who may judge you for what you want. Write them down.
When in the leadership realm, I’ll have you write out the org chart and gain clarity as to where you could have a stronger presence and how that could move the needle; be it up, across, or down the organization.
5. Action/Physical. What actual action can you take - write down 3 simple steps that might be able to take to get you closer to that 8.
6 Mental. Note any resistance that may come up when you think about taking step 4 and what’s the emotion behind it? Why shouldn’t you, or can’t you, take that step?
Maybe it’s fear. Overwhelm, or anxiety. Not enough time or resources. Maybe it's a lack of belief in your ability. Maybe you need to be perfect and you aren’t able to be perfect at this stage. Not knowing the right next step to take. Worried that it will fail. Worried that others may think you are “too much” …. our fears, our fear of criticism and the big one - our fear of being an asshole.
It’s really one of the main things that holds many of us back the most — we lift our people up, advocate for them, want the best for them, but often when it comes to ourselves — it’s a fine line between promoting ourselves and being perceived as “that guy/woman” who is the asshole and only cares about themself (they don’t, I promise - he/she just has other priorities that you can’t see).
Whatever it is, write down the emotion and where the resistance is showing up and/or journal about the feelings in order to release them. Or use EFT to tap them out. And then go back to number 4, AND TAKE THE ACTION.
7. Gratitude. Try to think how you would feel if you had the thing in step 1. While you stop to feel it, imagine a gold thread starting from your heart and or stomach and as you think of the thing it gets bigger and wider all around you, so it looks almost like a tornado ring of energy around you. Calling that thing to you.
Really. If you are reading this right now. Stop and breathe, call what you want to you. Drop your shoulders, feel your butt in the chair, your feet on the ground and expand your heart. You are worth it. And now think about one thing you are truly grateful for and breathe it in.
8. Future Self. Who are you BEING when you call that value towards you? If it brings up any negative emotion or fear, add that to point number 5. Step into your future self who is living that higher number, how do they think and feel as they move through the day and try to embody that.
Repeat steps 5-8 daily for 10 minutes a day running through each step, reimagining and visualizing what you actually want in this area.
And if you’d like to see how I did these exact steps when I was creating a move from Seattle to Las Vegas, check it out this post: https://jessicaburnettmcclure.com/jessica-mcclure-blog/how-i-made-a-move-to-another-state)
Need any clarity or shifting those numbers? Book a 30-minute clarity call with me here.
Do the work. Do the exercise. You are worth it.