How Well Balanced is Your Life Wheel?

If you are feeling frustrated or out of sorts, but aren't quite sure why, you may want to consider how well balanced your life wheel is. A life wheel covers the various aspects of one's life - the occupational, physical, spiritual, social, emotional, and intellectual pieces that fill your days, weeks, and years. For many of my clients, it is the occupational spoke on their life wheel that is out of whack - or that throws all the other pieces out of alignment. They are no longer (or maybe never were) satisfied with aspects of their work or they have grown to dislike something(s) about their work situation. So we try to identify a change that would address those concerns.

For one thing, you want to be sure that your work fits in somehow with your career goals and life plans. Think about what you want to accomplish during your life and what you would like to contribute to the world. At least in some small way, what you are doing should be helping to get you where you want to go or add to making this the kind of world in which you want to live. If this is not obvious in your work situation, then you should look for ways to add that to some other aspect of your life.

Certainly if there is no longer a good fit between you and your work, that can make you miserable, or at least more tired than you need/want to be. If that is your situation, I encourage you to spend some time and energy breaking down the situation, to see where the problem(s) lies. It could be that your day-to-day tasks have changed and no longer involve enough of the things you enjoy doing or find stimulating or challenging. In that case, I encourage you to consider if there are ways you could return some of that joy or replace some current tasks with others that would be more satisfying.

In reviewing your current work situation, it could be that the organization/your employer has switched gears and it's values are no longer in line with yours. If that is the case, I encourage you to consider if enough of your work values are being addressed to make you feel needed and comfortable. If not, then you may wish to prepare to launch a new job search or to discover a new career direction or find other ways to satisfy some of the values that are most important to you. In my experience, it is often the values piece that causes individuals to search for something different in their work lives. I will continue with the occupational spoke of the life wheel in the next post.


Mary Ann Davis is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) providing coaching and counseling for life's transitions; including a career change or job search, planning for retirement, loss of job, coping with an empty nest, preparing to return to work or school, and other life planning issues. She meets with individuals in person and via telephone. Mary Ann is certified as a Master Career Counselor (MCC) by the National career Development Association, a Life/Work Counselor by the National Employment Counseling Association, and is a Distance Credentialed Counselor (DCC). For more information on her services, please visit her web site at http://www.yourcareerplan.com/.

To contact Mary Ann, please call (513) 665-4444 x3 and leave a personal and confidential message or send an email to YourCareerPlan@cinci.rr.com.