Imagine trying to ride your bike with one flat tire. It’s darn near impossible. You can’t balance, and you can’t move forward very efficiently. When our life is out of balance, it’s like trying to ride a broken bicycle. So how do you repair the flat?

One of my favorite exercises for checking in to see how well I am balancing my commitments and interests is by constructing a life balance wheel. Here’s how:

1. Draw or trace a circle large circle.
2. Divide it into six parts.
3. Label the parts. I’ve used the categories financial, physical, social, family, mental and spiritual, but you may find different categories work best for you.
4. Next, take time to rate each of the categories you’ve chosen, 1-5, with 1 being the least fulfilled, 5 the most fulfilled.
5. Color in each category in relation to the number you’ve assigned it. (If you rated “mental” a 2, fill in only 2/5 of that category’s “slice.”)
6. Now you have a visual representation of where your wheel is flat. Make an action step or two where you’d like to see improvement.  

You can modify this wheel exercise to look more closely at one aspect of your life, too. For instance, you could use categories such as “sales & marketing,” “budget,” “team development,” etc. for your business. In your home, categories might include “bills,” “closets” and “kids’ papers.” If you need a little assistance getting started, you can use our cheat sheet below.

One final note: We can never achieve a complete and total balance of each realm of our life – life is much more fluid than that, and that’s okay. The idea here is to help focus on some of the areas that might be lacking; with a little added attention, you may feel like you’re on a pleasant bike ride through the park instead of stranded with a flat.