If you feel as if your life is out of balance, a wellness wheel can be an incredibly helpful tool to get you to where you want to be. The wellness wheel is generally made up of up to 8 different areas that bring wellness to your everyday life. For example, it could be made up of spirituality, occupational, intellectual, physical health, emotional well-being, financial, relationships and social network.
You can use the wellness wheel to assess how balanced your life is at this present moment and then make any changes you feel are necessary. The wheel works by looking at the centre of it as having a score of 0 and the outer edge as having a score of 10.
Then you can colour in each section of the wheel to see how much attention you’re giving to each area of wellness in your life.
Your wellness wheel may look different from the example listed above. It should be tailored to the aspects of wellness you’re most interested in. That might mean you have only 5 or 6 dimensions or maybe a few extra.
The main focus of the wellness wheel is creating holistic health and wellness in your life. When creating your wellness wheel, you should consider how many areas you can put your energy into. If you overextend yourself, it could lead to stress and disappointment so it’s important to keep that in mind from the beginning.
A wellness wheel is important because it ensures that you’re considering all aspects of wellness in your life, instead of placing the importance on just one or two compartments. After becoming more aware of your overall wellness, you’ll start to notice how interconnected these dimensions are. For example, if you hate your job or constantly feel stressed at work, it might start to affect how you treat your personal and family relationships if you’re in a bad mood when you get home at the end of the day. It could also affect your personal health if you overeat when you’re feeling unhappy or stressed.
This is where it becomes important to readdress your wellness wheel. You should make time each month to see where you fall in each wellness category. If you see yourself slipping in a few of them, think of what you can be doing to restore balance. Do you need to make more time each week to spend time with friends? Or maybe you want to focus more on your career/business. If that’s the case, you should ask yourself when you can find the time each day to work towards those goals.
It may also be helpful to look at each of your 8 (or so) wellness dimensions individually and break them down further into subcategories. For emotional wellbeing, this could be meditation, establishing a healthy morning routine, practising gratitude, setting aside time for hobbies that bring you joy, etc.
When you break your wellness wheel down, it becomes much more manageable and you’ll find new ways to bring joy to your life. It’s all in the little changes and habits you establish each and every day. It may take some time to find a balance so be kind to yourself and enjoy the process!
1 comment
Great article! This is a really helpful tool to monitor our wellbeing and monitor improvements or changes.