How to Work Out Where to Focus Your Energy

I wrote a few weeks ago about the importance of knowing our personal “Why”.

It’s the WHY that drives our motivation, whether it be family, relationships, sense of achievement, mastery or giving back. Our Why powers us to aim higher, do more. Our individual WHY is what propels us forward.

More importantly, identifying and crystallising your PERSONAL WHY will help you when times get tough. When life gets you down, do you have that PURPOSE to grab hold onto to help you take that next step forward because you have the REASON to plough on, the swim through the mud and endure the hard stuff.

Why is WHY important?

Once we have our raison d’etre, it can serve as our guiding North Star to further explore where we should direct our energies and how we can invigorate our lives. Just as people talk about their work life, love life, family and so on…one of the best ways to systematically assess the different aspects of our lives is the concept of Wheel of Life.

Adobe Stock Photo 359182324

The Wheel of Life can provide a powerful visual representation of our self-assessment of our lives. Before we dive into the exercise, I’d like to suggest we step back and reflect on the following:

1. Define what satisfaction means to YOU in each of the areas: For example: “Money” satisfaction could mean rich beyond wildest dreams for someone but just enough to not have to obsessively worry about where the next meal is coming from for the next person. Another example: what does “Spiritual life” mean to you- you might rephrase to mean “sense of life purpose and meaning” if you don’t happen to be particularly religious or spiritual.
2. Change the labels to something that is more applicable to you: Don’t be shy to rename the labels or even redefine the facets of your life that are more valuable to you. For example, maybe you don’t have a life partner at the moment. It doesn’t necessarily mean this whole area of your life is completely empty. You may relabel it to “community” for example if your community life is more valuable than whether you have a life partner or not.
3. Specify your own measures of satisfaction: To more clearly assess your satisfaction, it helps to think of 2–3 criteria that mean something to you for each area. As examples, you could specify “Career” satisfaction for you is:

• the extent to which you are working in or towards your dream role
• the level of success you’ve achieved in your job
• the opportunity to learn and master your skills at work
• the extent you value and take pride in what you do
• if you are working in a job that best utilises your talents and skills

We are not all the same. What is important to me may not be important to you. That’s why it’s so important to clearly define facets of your life that are important to you and specify the attributes that you find meaningful to you.

Once you’ve completed this exercise, it’s time to then proceed with the self-assessment. With a clearer understanding of what each aspect of your Wheel of Life means to you, you can now assess the following:

1. Where Are You Now: How satisfied are you with each area of the wheel now (rate from 1–10)
2. Where Do You Want to Be: Where would you like to be with each area of the wheel (rate from 1–10)

The resultant radial diagram might look something like below:

Adapted from with template from presentationgo.com

A few things to note:

1. There are no right or wrong answers: This is YOUR self-assessment. What’s important is that you are honest with yourself. Your honesty is the foundation for devising constructive goals and action plans.
2. Your target does not have to be all 10s: You don’t have to feel compelled to score your Want-to-Be 10s for all aspects of your live. Some people are quite comfortable and, in fact, want to be more focused on some areas than others. For example, you may wish to give priority to your career or to your family for a while.
3. Balance the Wheel (somewhat): Whilst it’s perfectly reasonable that you value some aspects of your life more than others, it is beneficial to have some kind of balance. To singly focus on one aspect and completely neglect all other areas of your life may actually leave you with a hollow victory if it’s meant sacrificing all else. It’s all about balance.
4. Pay special attention to the big gap areas: Were you surprised by what your self-assessment has revealed? Has the diagram revealed areas of your life where there is a big gap between where you are and where you want to be? Don’t freak out over the results or become disheartened. Instead, mobilise that frustration into action. Think about why the big gaps exist. What’s stopped you to date and what you can do to close the gaps. See them as the flashing lights warning you to start priority focused goal-setting and action planning.

And this is exactly the point of completing your Wheel of Life assessment — to turn that new understanding of your priorities and your current situation into actions.

Now that’ll be another article for another time. In the meantime, please do consider spending some time to complete the self-assessment and reflect on your findings.

Post-Script

Do a regular check-in with yourself: As we go through different stages in life and/or different events shake us to the core, our life priorities may shift in importance. It’s important to acknowledge and re-assess where you are to work out how best to accomplish what you want in the new chapter of your life.