How to do a life audit with the Wheel of Life

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Introduction

Do you ever feel like something is missing in your life? That you could be doing more or achieving more if only you knew how? If you are somehow feeling stuck in your own life, it might be time for you to learn how to do a life audit.

This process will help you evaluate your life and find ways to improve it. In this post, we will show you how to use the Wheel of Life to assess your current state of affairs, identify your areas of improvement, and set goals to improve them.

Anyone can implement simple but effective habits to turn life around. Still, it might be an overwhelming process if you don’t know where to start.

This post will help you with all of that.

Are you ready to take action and start improving your life today?

If so, let’s begin!

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How to use the Wheel of Life?

The Wheel of Life is a tool that can be used to assess different areas of your life.

Doing this exercise will help you identify what dimensions of your life are the least satisfying to work on them and improve your life.

The Wheel of Life is divided into eight sections:

• Career
• Finances
• Personal Growth
• Health
• Family
• Relationships
• Physical Appearance
• Environment

Here is what it looks like:

To do this assessment, rate each dimension on a scale of 0 (not satisfied at all) to 10 (very satisfied).

The purpose of this exercise is not to beat yourself up but to be honest with yourself and reflect on your current life.

For each area of the wheel, think about why you did not grade it a 10/10.

What would it take to be entirely satisfied by this dimension? This reflection is important because it will set the basis for the rest of the exercise.

For each dimension, write down what you’re missing to be fully satisfied.

Identify your priorities

Now that you have identified the areas of your life that need improvement, it is almost time to set some goals.

You should not give all areas of the Wheel the same priority. For a straightforward reason: you will not be able to work on all dimensions simultaneously.

If you have read my posts on how to do a 30-day life transformation challenge or how to turn your life around in 90 days, you already know that working on everything at once is not what you should aim for.

To do things correctly, you need to give it time. Trust the process. Implementing small changes you will be able to stick to will have a greater impact than trying to change everything at once.

Starting too big is not sustainable. This is why you should prioritize the changes to implement and establish a clear strategy for each of these changes.

To identify your priorities, ask yourself the following questions:

• Which area(s) of the Wheel of Life is/are most important to me?
• How would my life change if I improved in this area?
• What would my dream life look like?

After reflecting on these questions, rank the different areas of the Wheel of Life in order of importance.

To avoid spreading yourself too thin, you should work on your top 2 or 3 dimensions and leave the other ones for now.

You will have time to focus on these areas in a near future.

Identify your gaps

Now that you know what your priorities are, you need to visualize your ideal situation for the selected dimensions.

Think about why you did not give these dimensions a 10/10 and clearly identify the gaps between your current and ideal situations.

Let’s take an example.

You rated the dimensions “Personal finances” with a 5/10. Think about why you did not give it a better grade. It can be anything from ” I don’t make enough money” to ” I live paycheck to paycheck and it is stressing me out“.

Based on these affirmations, it will be quite easy to identify your gaps:

• I want to increase my monthly income to X
• I want to save X to stop living paycheck to paycheck

Identifying these gaps will help you define your long-term, mid-term and short-term goals.

You need to work on these gaps to slowly create your dream life.

The idea at this point is not yet to define your goals, it is simply to define specifically what you would like to achieve.

After having done this exercise, you should have a good understanding of what needs to be changed in your life and what kind of goals you should set.

You are now ready to start thinking about your ideal timeline.

Define your timeline

Another important step before setting your goals is to clearly define a timeline.

You need to define what long-term, mid-term, and short-term mean to you.

This notion will really depend on you, there is no right answer but there are a few things you should consider when defining your timeline.

First of all, your “long-term” should not be too far away. Imagining the future “You” can be really hard. Many studies show that most people struggle to imagine themselves in the future.

They simply do not represent their future self. Hence, they tend to separate that person from who they are in the present. These people tend to be far less responsible in their behaviors.

This is why so many people struggle to save for retirement and invest in themselves.

This is why defining an appropriate long-term deadline is so important. You want to give yourself enough time to accomplish significant goals while not giving yourself too much time.

Setting goals for a too-distant future usually does not work because the finish line is simply too far away.

This is why one should consider a 5-year deadline for long-term goals, yearly deadlines for middle-term goals, and quarterly deadlines for short-term goals.

You can of course set other deadlines for yourself but ensure they are coherent with the overall vision of your ideal life.

Set goals for each deadline

The easiest way to define your goals and milestones is to work backward.

Start by visualizing what you want to accomplish in long term and decompose this 5-year goal into 5 yearly goals.

You can then define quarterly goals that will help you ensure you stay on track as time goes by.

As you already know, defining SMART goals will help you ensure you set goals that serve your long-term vision of life and track your progress.

As a reminder, SMART stands for:

• Specific: Specific and narrow goals allow better planning
• Measurable: Measurable goals are tied with evidence that will help you ensure you make progress.
• Achievable: Your goal needs to be attainable within your timeframe
• Relevant: A Relevant goal is a goal that is aligned with your values and long-term vision of life
• Time-bound: Each goal should have a reasonable end date to help you stay motivated

An example of a SMART goal based on the example above would be:

I want to save $50,000 by December 31st, 2026.

I want to save $10,000 by December 31st, 2022, in an emergency fund.

You can split this goal into bite-size chunks and define monthly goals. Saving $10,000 in a year might seem like a lot for many people.

But if you split it by month, it represents $ 833,33 a month. Splitting your yearly goal into monthly milestones will also help you establish a strategy.

If you know that saving + $800 per month will not be possible, breaking down this goal will give you a new perspective.

You can, for instance, decide to start a side hustle to bring in +$ 500 per month and find ways to save the additional $ 333,33.

Breaking down goals is important as it brings clarity which is the very first step to taking action.

Writing down your goals will help you stay focused and review them while you make progress.

Create your roadmap

This step is directly linked to the goals and deadlines you set.

Human beings are visual creatures. 90% of the signals perceived by our brains are triggered by our eyesight. The 10% remaining are triggered by our other senses.

About 65% of the population is considered a “visual learner”. This is also why vision boards can be so powerful.

The aim of this step is to represent your timeframe and goals in a roadmap. This simple step will help you visualize your journey, which will help you stay motivated.

Saying that you will have $50,000 in your bank account by the end of 2027 might not be super motivating, considering the sacrifices you will have to make in the upcoming 5 years.

But if you decompose this 5-year timeframe into 3 month-steps, your goal will suddenly seem much more achievable.

Creating your roadmap will help you visualize the months to come. It is the best way to have a clear picture of what your life will be like while you work on your goals.

Your roadmap can be as simple as a piece of paper with your yearly, quarterly and monthly goals written down.

You can also find some great templates online to help you create your own personal roadmap.

Whatever method you choose, make sure it works for you and helps you stay motivated throughout your journey!

Define your habits

To achieve your goals, you will have to make lifestyle changes.

Identifying the changes you will need to implement is just as important as the goals you set.

This is also why setting short-term goals is so important.

Defining habits to achieve a 5-year goal is ineffective as the roadmap is pretty unclear.

Reflecting based on quarterly or even monthly goals makes the whole process much easier.

If your goal is to save + $800 per month, you can easily define new habits to support it.

You can, for instance:

• Review your budget once a week
• Unsubscribe from your favorite online stores to reduce your expenses
• Cancel unused subscriptions
• Stop using your credit cards
• Wait 72 hours before making a + $100 purchase
• Stop ordering takeout
• Declutter and sell unused items
• Start a side-hustle
• Etc.

Defining the habits to follow/break in order to achieve your goals will improve your strategy and set you up for success.

Track your habits

You can have all the goals and plans you want, but if you are not staying consistent with your habits and routines, your plans will never get you anywhere.

Being consistent is important to making progress and achieving your goals.

Seeing results will take time.

And it will not always be easy to stay motivated and consistent. This is why tracking your habits is key. It can get really frustrating not to see results despite working hard.

Tracking your habits is important to stay focused and motivated until you start seeing results.

To do so, you can use a simple notebook, an excel/Google sheet, or even download an app.

My favorite one at the moment is To-Do List Schedule Planner. This app offers so many functionalities, from To-Do Lists, planners, habit trackers, and much more. It also includes many themes and widgets to help you stay organized!

Choose the solution that works best for you and start tracking your habits today! If you want to use a printable habit tracker, you can download one by subscribing to my newsletter using the form below.

Track your progress

Tracking your progress is just as important as tracking your habits.

This step will help you ensure you are moving in the right direction and actually achieving your goals on time.

It also allows you to take action if you see that you are not progressing fast enough. Tracking your progress will indeed help you make the necessary adjustments to reach success.

This is definitely not a step you can afford to skip! So take a few minutes every 2 weeks to review your progress and ensure you are still on the right track.

If you realize that you are not making enough progress, have a look at your habit tracker.

Have you been consistent? If the answer is no, identify why.

Here are a few reasons that might explain why you are not being consistent with your plans:

• You have been too ambitious and are trying to implement too many habits at once.
• You are not planning your habits at the most convenient time. To find out your ideal schedule for productivity, take this free chronotype quiz!
• Bad habits are holding you back
• You did not define effective routines to support your goals

Celebrate your accomplishments

Congratulations, you have now reached your goal!

You have done your life audit, defined your goals, created a roadmap, implement new habits, and stayed consistent.

You have made great progress, worked hard, and achieved the goals you had set for yourself. Yes, you made it!

It is now about time to celebrate your accomplishments!

Take some time off, reward yourself and…

Final Thoughts: Get ready to start all over!

Winning in life is a never-ending process.

Now that you have reached your goals, it is time to start all over, do a new life audit, and start the same process with new exciting goals.

Achieving goals is so rewarding and motivating. It will boost your self-confidence and cheer you up to set new goals and continue transforming your life.

If you are ready to do your life audit and start transforming your life, downloading the free resource below will help you kick-start your journey.