Total duration face-to-face (2 hours)

Total duration online (ex. 2 hours)

MATERIALS

Activity worksheets, pen, pencil, coloured pencils/water colours

Objectives: The wheel of life is a tool to take a snapshot of how you perceive the balance in your life on the day you complete the exercise. It provides an instant overview of dimensions of your life in predefined categories like relationships, friends and family, finances and health. This tool helps in creating self-awareness. Remember it is self-knowledge that empowers us to gain direction and focus so that we can make necessary changes to create a fulfilling and balanced life.

Preparation: A Wheel of Life is typically a circle divided into several pie sections with each section labelled with one area of life like career, health, recreation, romance, spirituality and so forth. A series of concentric circles are created at equal distances from the centre—usually 10—with “1” being the innermost circle and “10” being the outside circle. The practice is to mark in each section of the pie what level of satisfaction you’re feeling in that life area, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the least satisfied and 10 being perfectly satisfied. The finished chart is simply intended to give you a visual of what areas in your life you’re more or less happy with in that moment. It’s a tool to allow you to see the overall picture.

PART 1 OF THE ACTIVITY (DURATION: 1 HOUR)

Step 1: Introduction (10 min)

Start the activity talking with the group about balancing different aspects of their life. Is it difficult for them to balance family-work-me time? Which dimensions of life are they handling in these moments of life? (motherhood, partnership, work, friendship etc.)

Continue the discussion with the question: Have you ever heard of expression Life management?

Ask participants to think for themselves what the expression means, which skills a person should have for successful life management etc. and ask them to write the ideas. Encourage them to share their thoughts, ideas with the group.

Provide a definition of life management: “Life management is the ability to handle everything you need in order to live a productive, happy and fulfilling life. It’s closely related to time management. Life management is about transforming your mindset so you can handle stress, master your emotions and take control of your life.” (Source: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/productivity-performance/manage-your-life-not-a-list/)

Step 2: Do the exercise The wheel of life (20 minutes)

Wheel of life is a tool to help you determine how satisfied you are with different dimensions of your life like relationships, friends and family, finances and health. This tool helps in creating self-awareness and set goals for the future for better life management.

Give participants a template of wheel of life and provide them with instructions on how to fill in the wheel of life:

• First tell them to define 8 dimensions of life that they will use in the exercise. You can give them suggestions but they can edit the categories if these don’t accurately represent the facets of their life:

1. Health and self-love
2. Motherhood
3. Partnership
4. Support (your village)
5. Work and career
6. Fun and recreation
7. Personal growth
8. Money and finances

• Choose and write down 8 dimensions of life, each on one line provided around the wheel.
• Next, think about each dimension. How satisfied you currently are with this life dimension? Is there something else you want to achieve in this area?
• Score your satisfaction of each life dimension. The score has to be based on your satisfaction as you feel it in this moment. Imagine the centre of the wheel is 0 and the outer edge is 10. Choose a value between 1 (very dissatisfied) and 10 (fully satisfied). Mark the score on the vertical lines inside the circle for each defined dimension of life.

IMPORTANT: Use the FIRST number (score) that pops into your head, not the number you think it should be!

• Now draw one flower petal for each dimension of life reaching the appointed score (have a look at the wheel of life example provided).
• Colour it. Use different colours for each dimension of life. Colour the background as well.

Step 3: Evaluation (15 minutes)

Does your wheel of life feel even and balanced? Ask participants to write down an evaluation of each area – why they scored it as they did, are they happy with the score/current situation? What would they change? Ask them to share their findings with the group.

Step 4: Setting goals (15 minutes)

The results of wheel of life can help you decide which dimensions of life you would like to improve. These are usually, but not always, the life wheel dimensions with lower satisfaction scores.

Present SMART technique of writing goals: The SMART in SMART goals stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Defining these parameters as they pertain to your goal helps ensure that your objectives are attainable within a certain time frame. This approach eliminates generalities and guesswork, sets a clear timeline, and makes it easier to track progress and identify missed milestones.

Ask participants to write down their goals linked with dimensions of life defined in the wheel of life and using SMART writing goals.

PART 2 OF THE ACTIVITY (DURATION 1 HOUR)

Step 1: Time management activity (30 min)

Ask participants to have another look of the wheel of life they produced in step 2 activity 1. Is their wheel unbalanced because they feel they are lacking time for some activities/development in certain dimensions of life?

Invite them to think for themselves about their normal day in life (current situation) and to write down their schedule (template Daily personal schedule).

Now ask them to write the schedule again (template Ideal daily personal schedule), including activities they would like to do/have but feel they do not have time (for example work out, have time for myself, have coffee with friends, read, go out with my husband …). They should still be realistic about their situation (considering a day has 24 hours, jobs, daily obligations …).

Ask them to compare the schedules. Is there something they can do to include in their daily schedule activities they feel they just do not have time for? Could they prioritize their activities, delegate some activities, let go of some chores etc.? This is all part of time management. Time management is the coordination of tasks and activities to maximize the effectiveness of an individual’s efforts.

Ask them to fill out the template (Time management) and invite them to share their findings.

Step 2: Visualizing Wheel of Life Mandala (30 min)

Point out to participants that the wheel of life, created in step 2 activity 1 resembles a mandala, but probably in most cases, the wheel is not symmetrical as mandalas normally are. A mandala is a symbol of the universe in its ideal form – in this part of the activity, ask the participants to visualize their perfect wheel of Life score (meaning that their satisfaction in all defined life dimensions is highest possible) and create a Wheel of Life Mandala. As a starting point the participants will use the wheel of life template adding shapes to create mandala (you will find samples of mandala that can work as an inspiration in the working sheets). As an alternative you can paint mandalas on canvas, on wooden boards, you can paint a coffee mug etc. If they are not comfortable drawing their own mandala they can colour the templates provided.

Creating mandala takes a lot of patience and time and can be a great way to have some time for yourself and your thoughts. Creating mandalas is seen as a form of art therapy can reduce anxiety, tension and overall stress.

The activity and the working sheets provided are set in a way that the facilitator can implement the activity face-to-face and online in the same way.