The Three Questions

This blog post is part of a series where I explore The Three Questions:

1. Who am I?
2. Where am I?
3. Where am I going?

These questions are vital to creating a happy, joy-filled life. If you don’t know who you are, then you won’t be able to make the right decisions for yourself. If you don’t know where you are in life, you won’t be able to troubleshoot and course-correct. If you don’t know where you want to be going, you’ll just be drifting through life, rather than creating the life that you want to live.

Where are you?

Now we’re onto the second happiness question: Where are you? That means: where are you in life? This is where you can clearly identify what’s right and what’s wrong for you: the things you like and don’t like, the things you want to keep and the things you want to change.

You may have done the Wheel of Life or balance wheel before, but as with other types of exercises, it’s a good idea to do this on a regular basis. Life changes, and it’s useful to notice how things have improved.

What is the Wheel of Life?

The Wheel of Life is a simple exercise to get a clear visual as to where you are in life right now. It’s depicted as a wheel or circle that’s usually divided up into eight areas. You can change the categories if you like, or adjust the wording. Here are the 8 categories that I’ve used for this exercise: finance, personal growth, health, family, spirituality, social life, attitude, career/business.

You rank each area on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being greatest. When you’re done, you can get a clear idea of where you are in life right now: what’s going well, what’s not going so well. It can help you to pinpoint which areas you might want to improve.

Wheel of Life exercise

So, how does your life currently rank on a scale of one to ten in the following areas: career, family, finance, health/wellness, personal growth, self expression, social life, spirituality/religion? Analyze how your life is going in each of these areas. Be sure not to over-analyze. Just give a quick, honest answer.

And remember, you won’t help yourself by being dishonest. This is all about getting to know the real you, without judgement and without hiding from the truth. Let’s take a minute so you can make note of these rankings. 10 is the absolute best: couldn’t be better. 1 is the worst you can imagine.

1. Print the document in the above link. I’ve already filled in the categories, but you can
2. Adjust the categories if needed. Consider the following: health/wellness, exercise/gym, relationship with partner, personal growth and development, spirituality, religion, career development, studies, giving back/contribution to society, financial prosperity, savings, socializing/fun, friends, family, children, parents, entertainment, work, personal space, hobbies, sports, artistic expression, etc. Can you think of any additional areas? Please share them in the comments below.
3. Now rank how you’re doing in each of the areas, on a scale of 1 to 10. If you’re unclear how to do it, use the example above. Get creative and use colored pens, oil pastels, or paints if you like.

How did that go? Please share in the comments.

This is such a simple exercise, yet it makes it so easy to get clear on where we are in life.