Nadia Ahmed, Certified life coach and Consultant Orthodontist
How do you feel about your work-life balance?
Do some areas of your life need more focus and attention?
I find the term ‘work-life balance’ an interesting phrase. Who makes the decision about what proportion of our lives are taken up by our work? What exactly is the right balance?
As most of those reading this article are dental professionals, I am sure you agree that we have dedicated a large proportion of our lives to our work, including years of studying as undergraduates, followed by postgraduate education and additional courses, often even on weekends. As a result, have we given less attention to other areas of life?
In this article, I would like to introduce one of the first exercises I do as a life coach with individuals who want to evaluate their life goals. In the first piece of this series, I highlighted the importance of identifying our values, living in alignment with them, and understanding the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
The ‘Wheel of Life’ Exercise
The ‘Wheel of Life’ exercise is one of my favourite tools to guide individuals to a deeper awareness of the areas of life they wish to focus on and set realistic goals. It helps assess each aspect of life and identify areas that need more attention.
It is called the ‘Wheel of Life’ because each area of life is mapped onto a circle, resembling the spokes of a wheel. Essentially, you use a visual tool to consider all the areas you want in your life and label each segment accordingly. Some examples include:
- Health
- Career
- Family
- Friends
- Finance
- Recreation or hobbies
Step 1: Scoring Your Current Life Balance
Give each segment a score out of 10 (0 is low, 10 is high) based on the attention you currently devote to that area. For instance, if you have ‘health’ as a segment but are not prioritising a healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, you might score it a 4/10.
Step 2: Identifying Imbalances
Join the points on your wheel to create a visual representation, resembling a spider’s web. This highlights where your scores are low and which segments have higher scores. The goal is to identify areas needing more focus.
Step 3: Setting Goals and Making a Plan
Determine the score you would like to achieve for each segment. Then, plan realistic steps to improve these scores. For example, if you want to increase your health score from 4 to 10, you might decide to incorporate exercise, healthy eating, mindfulness, or daily walks to manage stress.
Step 4: Identifying Interconnected Areas
Reflect on how different areas of life influence one another. For instance, if your career segment has a high score but other areas are lower, you may need to adjust your balance. Have you reached career goals and now need to focus on family, hobbies, or health?
Step 5: Prioritising and Taking Action
To make realistic progress, consider choosing your top three focus areas and setting a timeframe to make small shifts. A life coach can help prioritise and identify small, manageable steps to improve your scores.
How Balanced is Your Wheel?
Most of us have room for improvement and can benefit from regular reflection on how we allocate attention across different areas of life. Throughout different stages of life, our priorities shift. For example, after completing my orthodontic training, I focused more on family, friends, and creative hobbies such as cooking, art classes, cake decorating, and Bollywood dance training. This became possible when my work-life balance shifted after training.
Linking the Wheel of Life to Your Values
The Wheel of Life exercise becomes even more powerful when linked to your core values. If one of your values is family, your goal should be to have a high score in that segment to reflect its importance.
A value is a belief or principle that drives our actions and behaviors. Our values shape our subconscious and life map. If we make decisions misaligned with our values, we may experience doubt, uncertainty, or discontentment.
Consider the Following When Defining Your Values:
- What do you care about most in life?
- What is important to you?
- What can you remove from your life and still remain true to yourself?
By understanding and prioritising your values, you can live in true alignment with what truly matters to you. Keep refining and reassessing until you are confident that you are living your best life!
Reference:
Ahmed N. Alignment: It’s Not Just Straightening Teeth. BDJ In Pract 2024; 37: 18-19.
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