To quickly summarize, the wheel of life is comprised of 7+ categories: Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual, Financial, Social, Family, and Career. At least that is the wheel I heard about. In looking it up, everyone seems to have their own categories mixed in, which is fine.
The concept is, you put these categories into a circle, and rate them all from 0 to 10. For example, in my life, my physical and family are both 8's, my intellectual, social and financial are around 6, and my spiritual and career are around a 4. When you put those numbers into the wheel, it sure doesn't look like a wheel. It looks like a nasty bumpy ride down the road.
Here are some of the things I'm planning on doing about this though.
1) Physical: I've been running nearly every day for the last six months. I've created tangible goals with timelines, found accountability partners, created challenges for myself and others, and overall have been feeling great on a personal health level. Wow, what a perfect model to set for my other categories, right??
2) Family: I continue to call myself a stay-at-home dad, even though my daughter has gone off to kindergarten and doesn't play with me anymore. Even so, I continue to play a strong supporting role in keeping my child alive and engaged, keeping my wife fed and relatively happy. Some of the goals I have in this category are to i) date my wife more, ii) spend more time playing with my daughter, and iii) make sure we sit down to family dinner around the table every night. So important.
3) Intellectual: My goal lately has been to be reading motivational books to help point me in the direction my listless brain needs to go. The local library should be a good resource, but I've found it unhelpful so far. This leads me to purchasing the books I hear about, and I can't necessarily afford to buy books all the time. So, it's slow yet steady. I've been reading at least one non-fiction book and at least one fiction book every month. That seems to keep me balanced.
4) Social: I have my core group of friends that I call or contact at regular intervals. That is part of my current goal. The reason this category is a 6 though is because I don't have many social connections in close proximity to me. The list of people I know in my own town is short. My goal in social is to develop relationships with the people around me in my community. To build a network of people I know and can feel comfortable talking to in my own town. There are many avenues to get there, but it requires effort on my part to actually initiate conversations, get out there and make friends. Yikes. That is scary.
5) Financial: This category is so complicated in our lives. My wife and I have been married for a long time, but have always been denied a comfortable lifestyle due to extending into doctor school and internships and now that she has a real career, we have a mess to clean up. The good news is, we have a plan, we've been making progress and the needle seems to move every month we continue our plan. Right now, this category is a 6, but next year, maybe it will be a 7. Or 10.
6) Spiritual: We do not go to church at this stage of our lives. We've talked about it. There are so many benefits to attending church, getting engaged in the community, giving, etc. We just haven't made an effort to attend a church in a long time. Action requires effort and doing new things is scary. We still have faith, bless our food and thank the Lord for our blessings, but there is no doubt we are lacking in this category. I am, anyway. I shouldn't speak for my wife in this particular category. She has always had a strong faith, so I'll leave her out of my category on this one.
7) Career: This too is complicated. I long to contribute to the economy. I want to make a difference at the place I work part-time. But I also recognize that my wife has a career category of something like a 10. She is awesome, makes a huge difference, and will one day take over the world. In keeping a balance, I feel like I play a strong supporting role for her, and in order to keep her strong, I need to make sure things are solid at home. This is the balance we've struck as a family and I love it. But it also limits what I am willing to do outside the home myself. But that doesn't mean I can't be an effective team member at my job. It just means I have to maximize my time while I'm working for them. It means that when I come up with an idea, I need to move on it and get it implemented as quickly and efficiently as possible. There are so many areas I can grow this business, but it starts with me taking the initiative and working when it's time to work. In the longer term, I have ambitions of running my own life, owning my own career. Surrounding myself with an unstoppable team. But in the meantime, I will continue to hone my skills to help someone else fulfill their dreams.
That's it. My wheel of life for the world to see.
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