No matter how accomplished my clients are, they all come to our work together saying they’ve yet to master the area of health and wellbeing.
Think about it, do you feel like you’re at your ideal weight, physically strong and consistently energized throughout the day? Clear and focused, without wrestling with food cravings and/or chronic symptoms?
Are you happy with your overall health, unencumbered by nagging chronic symptoms or reoccurring health problems?
If you’re like most people, likely not. If you’re like most of my clients, this flat-out does not work.
All say things like, though they’ve managed to get every promotion they’ve wanted, achieved every goal they’ve aspired to, earned the nod of the Board Chair and now travel the world, they don’t know what to do to get healthy and stay healthy.
I so get it. I tried every healing modality I ever heard of before ‘it’ clicked, for me.
And I learned a kind of ironic thing along the way, to achieve results in any get-healthy game, actually to achieve results in any area of life, you’ve got to know what’s working, and what’s not, IF you want to create healthy lifestyle habits that last.
Exactly. Healthy lifestyle habits are not simply about eating healthy food and getting to the gym. Healthy lifestyle habits are a holistic endeavor.
Which is why I recommend stepping back from your get-healthy, weight-loss and fitness goals for a minute, to check out The Wheel of Life.
The Wheel of Life is a seemingly benign exercise, but it offers usable insights about areas of life that could be helping you, or hindering you, areas that are working for you, and the areas that are not.
Why is this important?
Consider this: Imagine each area of life like a spoke on a wheel: If one of the spokes is shorter than the others, it throws your whole balance off. And this is how it shows up; if your social life is lacking, you could look to food to fill that void. If your primary relationships are less than loving, you could look to food to satisfy your emotional needs. If you’re unhappy in any area of life, it could impact your health and your larger life goals.
The Wheel of Life is a great exercise and tool to help you achieve the results you most want, by helping you create the balance you most need.
But better? The Wheel of Life shows you what areas of life could be holding you back from losing that last 10 pounds, developing a consistent fitness routine, and even developing a regular mediation practice.
TO DO THIS EXERCISE:
- Place a dot on the line in each category to rate your level of happiness in each area, with the periphery being a 10-Level of happiness, and the center being a 0 or 1. As you fill this graphic out, remember that ‘if we’re not growing, we’re dying,’ so consider leaving the opportunity to develop all areas, if even just a little!
- Now connect the dots to see your Wheel of Life, with all it’s strengths and weaknesses. The perimeter you create by connecting the dots represents the wheel of your life. If this were a real wheel, how smooth of a ride is your life?
- Identify what areas fall low on your rating scale.
- Reflect on how and why each area rates as it does for you. Consider how and why each area ‘fuels’ you. Consider how and why the areas that you most fulfilled sustain you. Consider how and why the low-rated areas could be holding you back, impacting your health, and even thwarting your commitment to your health.
WHAT IS IT YOU REALLY WANT? YOUR NEXT STEPS
To create what you really want in life, may it be vibrant health, increased energy, clearer thinking or less chronic symptoms, you must identify where you are at right now. Start by completing The Wheel of Life then take these three action steps:
- Get clear about your strengths and weaknesses.
- Identify what areas of your life rank low, and what you can do to create greater happiness in that area.
- Identify what areas of your life are strong, and why and how they got strong — Mirror your own strengths from one area of life to the other, to create a smooth ride on your Wheel of Life.
And if you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’m here to help!
