When we want to shift the focus on what is already working out for us, it is helpful if we do not consider only one area of our lives, but all areas of our lives.
In the picture above, I’ve divided life into eight different sections: career, money, health, partner, family, friends, learning and environment.
You may have your own way of thinking about your life and what are the parts of your life, but this is an example I use to explain the idea.
When we think about all areas of our lives, we make sure that things are working for us in much more wider perspective than just in, for example, career wise or family wise or learning wise. That’s much more comprehensive way of succeeding in and enjoying life.
And when we look at our life as a whole, all areas of it, the good in other areas can balance out the temporary bad in one area. We don’t ever need to define our lives based on something not working out for us in only one area – when we see how much of life altogether is working out for us, it is much easier to concentrate on changing the things that do not YET work out for you.
One way of looking at this is to take a moment and make a complete evaluation of the different areas of your life, such as according to the picture.
With my private coaching clients, we often start with this kind of evaluation, even though they come to coaching with a specific topic in their mind. When you look at the wheel of life, the point in the middle represents the lowest grade and the outer circle represents the ideal – something that is really good in your life.
Now you can evaluate each area of your life and mark the grade for it somewhere between the point in the middle and the outer circle, based on how well that area of life is working out for you.
By the way, the environment part does not only mean your physical environment, such as your home, the part of the city you live in, the city you live, the country you live in, the continent you live in, but also the mental environment, the kind of thoughts you repeatedly think of and the kind of people you repeatedly surround yourself with.
None of my clients have ever marked all the areas way out in the ideal – and I have very successful clients (measured by any measurements) – so when you do this, do realize that there always is something to work on, there’s always something more that we want to create and to be (that’s part of our DNA, that’s how we as human beings keep developing).
And the idea is not to compare your marks with anyone else, that’s a trick that usually makes us feel less confident and we discuss that topic another time.
The idea is for you to notice how satisfied you are with your life and which areas of your life are already working out for you and with which areas you might want to change something in order to make them work even better for you. And when you look at your life this way, as a whole, not just one part of it, you always find that some things ARE already working out for you!
Much love,
Paula
xx