This is the second part of three posts about my recent process being on the crossroad of life choices. The first post: Isn’t There A Middle Ground?
If the first part is quite specific around money, this one tries a wider perspective.
Near the end of last year, I got an introduction into several interesting things. I tried to explore those too, eventually. Thanks to more free time in this pandemic. Recently, I try to synthesize those learnings with my own approach.
The Wheel of Life
The first one is about The Wheel of Life. I do hope the name is not too overwhelming. I think The Wheel of Life gains more popularity from Tony Robbins. I didn’t find any original source of who originally shared this concept. Please let me know if you have any references. It’s actually a list of 8 aspects in life that we can reflect on regularly. It consists of:
- Health / Wellbeing
- Finance / Money
- Family / Friends
- Business / Career / Work
- Connection / Relationship
- Personal Growth
- Fun / Recreation
- Physical Environment
I heard about it initially from Follow Your Flow. They mentioned that this tool can help us to be closer to clarity. They explained it deeper in their podcast. As I tried to dig deeper, I found that there are various version of the wheel. So I guess the 8 aspects are flexible and can be configured. There is no right or wrong.
The good thing about that wheel is the details of the various aspects in life. It’s a good tool to be more honest with our life. The tool can help not only to look at the past, but also to plan ahead. And also, to dream about the life that we aspire to live on.
We can put the score as we like. What’s important is about being honest to acknowledge which aspect of life that we want to prioritize. It’s about digging a clear intention within ourself.
If I may share my end of 2020 reflection, I was quite low on health. I was working more than usual due to travel restriction in the early pandemic. It was still manageable, I accepted it as a blessing as it help to boost the money part. But, of course there are trade offs for the fun, the health, and the relationship part. That’s the reality.
You can try to reflect with the wheel as you like. Another sweet example is from Indonesian illustrator byputy here:
I guess once you try to reflect with it, you can sense that in many ways the aspects are connected to each other. That’s what I feel and leads me to try to see the bigger picture.
Let’s hop on to the next.
The Rule of Three
I remember that last year I also learned about The Rule of Three. I learned it from a book titled You Do You. In chapter 1.7, Fellexandro Ruby believes that The Rule of Three is about managing focus. The strength of the rule of three is on focus and concentration. The book gives example to have main focus on Life, Career, and Money for the year; of course we can elaborate more to suit our self. It will be up to us.
Last month, I also observed TodayPurpose blog, especially his piece On Time, Money, and Health. It’s not essentially a tool-like concept like The Wheel of Life, but I think it’s deeply related. It’s more about a reflection on three important things to make the most of our life. The writer is inspired by a book titled Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. I might need to read it too. I am glad that I discovered that blog because I believe it is also easier to focus more as suggested by the rule of three. Those are Free Time, Health, and Money.
I believe most of other aspects in life are derived from those three vital realms.
In the Free Time part, we can fill it with fun/recreation, with more meaningful relationships, with more family time, with more time for personal development, or just to enjoy doing nothing.
In the Health part, we can connect more with our body and our mind, I believe the health of our mind is also heavily relate with our relationship with others.
In the Money part, we can pursue our career, and to build our wealth and financial security.
One important reality that we must acknowledge is that those three things may increase and decrease the more we age.
TodayPurpose wrote:
In Die With Zero, the hours and energy we are “awake” to do things is referred to as Life Energy. There is just a limited amount of it. The main question is how do you spend that life energy? Is this life energy constant no matter our age? From 18 to 40 is, in my humble opinion, the best years of our life… Our health is at its peak, and we start making money, so can use it to do any kind of activities we wish. However with age, our health declines, and we start seeing its undesired effects starting in our 40s (some might argue 30s). We start saying no because of [ back — knees — bones — etc ] conditions.
Thus, TodayPurpose gives a simple visualization of triangle. I’d like to call it Triangle of Life. Personally, this Triangle of Life is more straightforward and less overwhelming. Especially for the moments where you feel so far away from clarity.
I am in between the 30 to 50 y.o. window now. I know, the phases will be different for everyone. I know some people that have to start having a job since 15 years old so they can pay their own education, thus they might have less free time. As we get older, we still need to accept that our health will not be the same like when we were 25 years old. Please keep in mind that the illustration from TodayPurpose only serves as a visualization of commonly accepted reality, not a goal.
I do hope we can shape our own fulfilling path.
Most people will hope that in their prime age they can have a balanced relationship on that triangle. Good health, enough money to live comfortably, enough free time for their own interest; it can be for families, or maybe just for fun and chill.
Energy Allocation
We need also to acknowledge that our energy is mostly limited. Reflecting on that Triangle leads me to think about personal energy allocation, or resource allocation. Deeply inspired by Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life?. Especially on chapter four, Your Strategy Is Not What You Say It Is.
Prof. Christensen wrote in that chapter:
Unless you manage it mindfully, your personal resource allocation process will decide investments for you according to the “default” criteria that essentially wired into your brain and your heart. As is true in companies, your resources are not decided and deployed in a single meeting or when you review your calendar for the week ahead. It is a continuous process — and you have, in your brain, a filter for making choices about what to prioritize.
The danger for high-achieving people is that they’ll unconsciously allocate their resources to activities that yield the most immediate, tangible accomplishments. This is often in their careers, as this domain of their life provides the most concrete evidence that they are moving forward.
I learned it the hard way. That second paragraph feel like a slap to my face. Our energy allocation is not about what we say we want to do. It’s about the actual process of what we actually do, our actions and executions.
It reminds me the importance to ask ourselves:
Are our actions and executions aligned with our intentions?
Are they aligned with what we aspire to be?
I know, it’s getting more challenging once we took more responsibilities to feed more people. Or, if we are raised with a condition that we have to support other member of the family too. To be more than just about ourself. In many cases, some kids are already born with responsibilities on their shoulder.
Remember that everyone have a different starting line in life.
Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, thinker, and author, said in his TED Talk:
In most cases, it’s a harsh reality that we need to chase cash first. Just like what I shared on the previous post.
However, once we got into a more comfortable conditions, we might be trapped to keep chasing cash. Our mind might tend to keep moving the goal post and chasing more.
It’s really easier to see the growing numbers on our bank accounts (the tangible) rather than the healthy and fun relationship with those we care deeply (the intangible).
The closure of that specific chapter is deeply contemplative.
You’ll often see the same sobering pattern when looking at the personal lives of many ambitious people. Though they may believe that their family is deeply important to them, they actually allocate fewer and fewer resources to the things they would say matter mot.
Few people set out to do this. The decisions that cause it to happen often seem tactical — just small decisions that they think won’t have larger impact. But as they keep allocating resources in this way — and although they often won’t realize it — they’re implementing a strategy vastly different from what they intend.If your family matters most to you, when you think about all the choices you’ve made with your time in a week, does your family seem to come out on top? Because if the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.
I think, it’s still related to the Triangle of Life.
What do you think?
For me, the journey from the wheel with 8 points into the triangle with 3 points is not an over-simplification. I feel like it’s actually about digging deeper inside ourself.
In which point do we over-invest or under-invest?
Is it money? Or maybe free time? Or health?
I know it might not be easy to answer those, but at least we can try to be more honest. Day by day.
Personal Reflection
I am grateful that I got a chance — and still have some resources — to learn more on the intangibles during the past year.
And it’s really funny how things work out because as I shared on the previous post, the universe led me to another crossroad. In which I have to decide. Maybe, my decision-making process in the past is not so great. Therefore, I got another chance to process a better decision.
The Triangle of Life concept help me to think, and also to feel.
Each path have their own challenges. However, I tried to follow the path with a healthier balance between the free time and the money. I try to understand that the health and the free time point are not easy to measure, but I realize that those two are really important.
As the wisdom said:
Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.
I will share the last part of this crossroad series straight to the heuristic that I tried to implement this year on the next post.
If you have any thoughts about my learning process, please share in the comment section.
