Looking to become a life coach? Or maybe you want to earn more from your life coaching business? Then you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’re teaching you how to integrate the popular Wheel of Life tool into your coaching practice so you can expand your repertoire, enhance your services, and start earning more money today. Plus, we’re providing you with a handy template that allows you to start using the Wheel of Life today.
Our Wheel of Life Coaching template provides you with two printable Wheel of Life tools so you can start using the tool with clients today. It also walks you through the process of using the tool and helps you manage your clients’ Wheel of Life assessments. Get it for free now!
What is the Wheel of Life?
The Wheel of Life is a popular coaching tool that helps clients quickly visualize and understand how balanced their life is at a given moment. Consider it a snapshot of a client’s “life balance”.
The Wheel of Life is usually made up of eight “life areas,” including categories like health, career, and relationships. These areas can also be customized to fit each client’s unique needs — but more on that later.
How it works
First, your client will rate their level of satisfaction in each life area and map each one onto the Wheel of Life. After they’ve plotted out their scores, they’ll draw connecting lines between all the points around the wheel. This completed wheel gives clients an immediate, visual overview of their current “life balance”. This will help them pinpoint areas of improvement to to focus on during their coaching sessions.
For example, a client might give a high satisfaction score to the “career” category but a low score to “relationships.” Once plotted out on the Wheel of Life, the discrepancy between these two points will create a lop-sided “wheel.” This imbalance indicates that the client should likely focus on improving their relationships and social life during their coaching journey.
The idea behind the Wheel of Life is to help the client create a more “well-rounded” life for themselves, with high satisfaction in all (or most) areas.
Why use the Wheel of Life in your coaching practice?
The Wheel of Life is widely considered one of the top coaching tools around. Why? Namely for two reasons: because it’s simple and it’s powerful. In other words, the Wheel of Life is extremely easy-to-use and extremely effective.
This assessment tool helps you and your client accurately identify pain points easily, so you can determine your coaching priorities and set real-world goals quickly. That’s to say that the Wheel of Life also saves you time during your initial assessment, so you can begin targeting your client’s issues and delivering tailored services sooner.
Because it’s so easy to use, the Wheel of Life can be used in a number of different ways. These include taking your client’s initial and final assessments, as well as tracking your client’s progress over time. In the end, the Wheel of Life enables you to deliver more effective coaching services to your clients and help them tackle their issues sooner.
Want to start using the Wheel of Life in your coaching practice? Our Wheel of Life Coaching Template shows you how to integrate the popular tool in your practice. It also comes with a two printable Wheel of Life tools that you can start using with clients today. Get it for free!
How to use the Wheel of Life in coaching
Now that you know what the Wheel of Life is, we bet you’re wanting to learn how to use it in your coaching sessions.
Read on as we walk you through how to supercharge your coaching practice with the Wheel of Life. All it takes is seven simple steps:
- Introduce the Wheel of Life
- Determine the life areas
- Rate the life areas
- Create a visual representation
- Reflect and set goals
- Create an action plan
- Reassess and review
Step 1: Introduce the Wheel of Life
This might seem obvious, but hear us out! The first step to integrating the Wheel of Life in your coaching practice is to introduce it to your client.
While the Wheel of Life might be well-known among life coaches, this tool is certainly lesser-known among the general population. That’s why you’ll need to catch your clients up to speed before jumping into using the Wheel of Life.
For this step, sit down with your client and explain the Wheel of Life’s purpose in identifying areas for improvement. This includes explaining how to use the Wheel of Life to assess “life balance” and to set goals for self-improvement.
Step 2: Determine the life areas
Now, it’s time to start using the Wheel of Life. Begin by presenting your client with the following “life areas” to consider:
- Health and fitness
- Career and work
- Relationships and social life
- Personal growth and learning
- Financial stability
- Leisure and recreation
- Spirituality and faith
- Environment and home
Typically, the Wheel of Life is made up of eight “life areas” like the ones listed above. However, the list can be customized based on your client’s specific needs. You can personalize your client’s Wheel of Life by asking them to reflect on their personal values, determine the eight “life areas” that are the most important to them (i.e. mental wellbeing, fun, etc.), and then note them on the outside of the wheel.
The more relevant the life areas are to your client, the better you can address your client’s specific coaching needs — and the more effective your work will be.
Step 3: Rate the life areas
Now comes time for the assessment. For this step, ask your client to rate their satisfaction with each life area on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being extremely dissatisfied and 10 being fully satisfied) and plot out their ratings on the wheel (with “1” on the innermost ring and “10” on the outer ring).
Don’t want to purchase or design your own Wheel of Life tool? You can download our printable Wheel of Life Coaching Template for free. This easy-to-use template provides you with a ready-made wheel that can be printed out and used immediately.
Step 4: Create a visual representation
Once your client has finished plotting out their scores on the wheel, grab a ruler and connect all the dots.
The completed wheel will give your client a visual representation of their current life balance and the areas that they might want to improve.
Step 5: Reflect and set goals
Now that the assessment is finished, it’s time to reflect and set goals.
First, ask your client to reflect on their completed wheel. Ask them to talk through what they notice and what they’ve learned from the process. This reflection step should help your client identify the areas they’ll want to focus attention and energy for improvement.
With these reflections in mind, ask your clients to set goals for themselves within the areas they’d like to improve. As the coach, you’ll want to record these goals for future reference.
Want to keep all your Wheel of Life paperwork in the same place? Our free Wheel of Life Coaching Template enables you to complete your client’s wheel assessment and track their goals all from one convenient location.
Step 6: Create an action plan
What’s a goal without an action plan?
For your next step, you’ll want to develop an action plan to help your clients achieve their goals. You’ll do this by breaking down each goal in small, manageable steps.
For example, if your client’s goal is to make more friends, you can suggest they begin by signing up for a class or meet-up group. From there, they can build towards their goal, say, by going to one class a week and striking up a conversation with one of their their classmates.
Step 7: Reassess and review
The Wheel of Life isn’t just a one-and-done assessment tool. In fact, it can be used throughout you and your client’s coaching relationship to regularly review their overall life satisfaction and progress towards their goals.
Throughout your coaching relationship and the remainder of your coaching program, use the Wheel of Life to check in with your client by asking them to reassess their satisfaction scores and their progress towards their goals.
6 Ways to use the Wheel of Life in coaching
In addition to being simple and powerful, the Wheel of Life is also extremely versatile. This easy-to-use tool can be used in a multitude of different ways throughout your coaching practice, including:
- With prospective clients
- To diagnose pain points
- To set and prioritize goals
- To track progress
- To demonstrate the effectiveness of your coaching
- For quick check-in’s
1. With prospective clients
Because it’s so effective and easy-to-use, the Wheel of Life is a great way to build trust with prospective clients.
Oftentimes, prospective clients arrive to sample sessions unsure of exactly what they want from a life coaching program. In this scenario, the Wheel of Life helps uncertain clients identify areas to prioritize during coaching, while demonstrating the power of coaching.
On the other hand, some potential clients might be too shy to share their personal problems with a new life coach. In this case, the Wheel of Life provides clients with an easy-to-use, low-stakes venue to disclose their personal pain points without having to unpack all of their baggage. Working through the Wheel of Life together helps build trust between the two of you, and can help your client build trust in the coaching process as a whole.
2. To diagnose pain points
The Wheel of Life is most commonly used to assess a client’s life balance within a life coaching context. However, it can also be used as a powerful diagnostic tool in other coaching contexts, too.
Most significantly, the Wheel of Life is a great way for any coach to pinpoint sources of stress or dissatisfaction in their client’s lives. If your client feels unhappy or frustrated, their Wheel of Life scores are a great way to figure out what might be bugging them — and a great starting point for them to begin overcoming these pain points.
3. To set and prioritize goals
Have a client who wants life coaching but doesn’t know where to start? The Wheel of Life can help with that.
The Wheel of Life helps clients easily identify and choose the areas of their life that need improvement, so they can start setting goals immediately.
In most cases, clients will want to focus their efforts on areas with lower satisfaction scores and begin by prioritizing areas with the lowest ratings.
4. To track progress
The Wheel of Life isn’t just a great assessment tool, it’s a great re-assessment tool, too.
Once you’ve used the Wheel of Life in your first coaching session with a client, you can revisit the tool and reassess their life balance at regular intervals. This will allow you to track your client’s progress within specific life areas and towards specific goals over the course of your coaching relationship. If your client’s scores are increasing over time, then your coaching is paying off! And that brings us to our next point.
5. To demonstrate the effectiveness of your coaching
In the context of tracking progress, the Wheel of Life is also a powerful way to build trust with your clients by demonstrating the effectiveness of your coaching services.
An upward trend in a client’s Wheel of Life scores is tangible proof that your coaching is working, which will help bolster your coaching relationship and their trust in your coaching program.
6. For quick check-in’s
Because it’s so easy to use, the Wheel of Life is the perfect tool to use any time as a quick “check-in” with clients. The Wheel of Life can be helpful to use at any point during your coaching relationship and can be a litmus test for how a client feels about their life at any given moment.
The Wheel of Life can be especially helpful to revisit if your client has recently gone through a big life event, such as a work promotion, a break-up or a health set-back.
Once your client knows how to use the Wheel of Life, you can even empower them to use it outside of your coaching sessions, whenever they want to check in with themselves.
Start earning $$$ coaching today
Now that you know how to use the Wheel of Life tool and have our template ready to go, you can start integrating it into your coaching practice — and making money — today.
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In addition to mini-courses, challenges, guides, and tutorials, The Leap allows you to sell mini-consultations through its “Ask Me Anything” feature. Rather than conducting a live coaching session, these bite-sized consults let you to share your advice, offer feedback, and answer clients’ questions via pre-recorded video. In other words, they’re an easier, more hands-off way to monetize your coaching expertise.
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Further reading
- How To Become a Life Coach (Tips + Free Templates)
- How To Create a Coaching Contract (+ Free Template)
- How To Create a Life Coaching Business Plan (+ Free Templates)
- How To Become a Mindset Coach (Tips + Free Templates)
- Your Guide to Creating an 8-Week Coaching Program (+ Free Template)
- Your Guide to Creating a 12-Week Coaching Program (+ Free Template)
- How To Sell Digital Products Online: A 6-Step Launch Checklist
- How To Promote Your Digital Products: 10 Ways To Boost Sales
