As a life coach, I’ve only had three clients (and only one paying client), so my experience in the field is admittedly limited, but exercises like this strike me as more style than substance.
From the Mommy Beta blog:
Take a few minutes and fill out The Wheel of Life (below). The eight sections of the wheel represent balance. Rank your level of satisfaction with each area of life by placing a number from 1 to 10 in each (10 being very satisfied and 1 being not so satisfied). It’s way to see where you’re most satisfied and where you could focus your attention on a little more.
Are you kidding me? A Wheel of Life?
This is the kind of activity that I was required to do in high school during Peer Education when class discussion sucked. A time-wasting filler for those awkwardly silent days.
Your life may not be balanced, but if so, you should damn well know which areas need more attention and which areas do not, particularly if balance is being determined based upon your own personal preferences (which, by the way, seems like a rather stupid way to evaluate balance in the first place).
If you can’t tell which areas of your life leave you the least satisfied without the use of this wheel, we need to discuss basic cognitive functioning and self awareness.
Or perhaps I should just hit you over the head with a wheel.
What should one expect from the Wheel of Life expect?
“Why look! I rated myself rather low in the areas of Romance and Personal Growth. I had no idea that my levels of satisfaction were disproportionately lower in these areas in comparison to the rest. Perhaps I should join Match.com and start taking pottery classes. Thanks, Wheel of Life!”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As a life coach, how is this Wheel of Life supposed to be helpful? If my client rates his satisfaction at a 10 in the Health section of the pie but is grossly overweight and has high blood pressure, am I supposed to be pleased?
If my client has no plan for retirement but is happy with his Money section because he wants to live in the moment, should I pat him on the back and send him on his way?
And could someone please tell me what the hell Physical Environment means and how I expected to achieve balance in this regard? I have a foot of snow on my front yard and cannot play golf for at least two months, so my physical environment sucks right now.
But what am I supposed to do about it?
Plan a trip to Florida?
Take a hair dryer to some of the snow banks around the eighteenth green?
More importantly, I didn’t need a Wheel of Life to tell me that my Physical Environment sucks, if this is what Physical Environment even means. I can just use a window, which requires considerably less effort and time and doesn’t make me feel like such a dumb ass for using.
I know. I might be a little rough around the edges, but admit it:
You want me as your life coach.
