ARTICLES
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Balancing The Wheel Of Life
by By David Ledoux
Have you ever done the "Wheel of Life Exercise"? It's a
favorite staple of the coaching industry. You take a
blank piece of paper, and draw a large round clock on a
page. You know, big circle, center point, arms from the
center point to the outer circle like the numbers on a
clock.
It almost looks like a big apple and rhubarb pie sliced
into 12 pieces.
How did you do? I got a 'B' in art class. I hope you
followed my wonky directions!
Each slice of the pie represents a key area of your life.
I have my coaching clients label each piece with titles
meaningful to them. Popular examples are "health, wealth,
recreation, family, relationships, spirituality,
charity, education, career, etc." Try this for yourself.
Now imaging that the center of the pie represents ZERO,
and the outer edge of the circle represents that area of
your life as a perfect TEN. You then rate each area of
your life based upon your current satisfaction level
with that area. For example, maybe your relationships are
a 6, your health is a 7, your income is a 4, your career
is a 5, your spirituality is a 8, etc.
Make a little mark on each slice to represent the score
for each area.
Then join each mark together to get a weird blobby shaped
Wheel of Life.
I may never have met you, but I'm pretty sure that you
didn't score yourself a perfect TEN in each key life
area. If you did, then send $10,000 to your
favorite 5 charities....good for you. In 15 years of
doing this I have yet to meet a perfect TEN in each area!
Obviously a Wheel Of Life that is out of balance will
crash at any speed above a slow crawl. That's why often
our lives seem so crazy the minute we start moving in any
direction quickly. It's like the proverbial shopping cart
at the grocery store...one bad wheel causes accidents!
Many of us are acutely aware that our lives are out of
balance. The big question is,"What do I do about it?"
That's where Strategic Thinking plays an important role.
It is critical that you take time each and everyday to do
nothing but just think. Here's what I do.
I get up at 7 am every morning Monday to Friday. I put on
jeans, a sweatshirt and an old baseball cap to cover my
bed head. I pop on the headphones with some relaxing
instrumental music on my cd and start walking. I walk 30
minutes away from my house, then turn around and walk
back. That's my hour walk each morning.
On the walk I focus on my breathing for 5 minutes, just
quietly waking into the day. I then do 3 minutes of
listing everything that I am grateful for. Then I
visualize my day, week, month and year for about 7
minutes. By then I have been walking 15 minutes, I am
wide awake, energized, and then I focus the next 45
minutes on Strategic Thinking.
This has worked wonders for me! I have created business
plans, new products, goals, trips, and had amazing
creative ideas on these walks. One of the patterns that I
have begun to do is to break Key Life Areas into Areas of
Improvement. I'll give you an example, Health.
For years I had no definitive strategy when it came to my
Health. I ate relatively well, exercise occasionally,
kept my waistline under 32, and was managing fairly well
with stress. With no focused goal for my health, it
pretty much coasted along. Once I started Strategic
Thinking, everything changed.
I first broke Health into sub-categories so I could focus
my improvement. I now work on Flexibility, Strength,
Cardio, Diet, and Stress Management. I found books
related to each sub-category, and began to self-educate.
I sought out the best experts in each field to learn their
strategies. Within weeks I was making significant
progress in each area. With an actual goal to shoot for
my energy levels, flexibility and strength and body fat
levels have all improved.
So here's my challenge to you. Take a minimum of 30
minutes each day at least 5 days a week just for yourself
for the next 21 days. Give yourself the gift of personal
quiet time so you can practice Strategic Thinking on all
of the important areas of your life. Separate yourself
from the masses that live from crisis to crisis in
reaction mode from dawn 'til dusk. Watch the amazing
changes unfold in your life!
I believe in you!
More from the author:
If you would like to join
the 300,000 + marketers that already receive David's free
Generic MLM training, go over to: I Love MLM,
David's site, and sign up.
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