How to Create Goals that Cultivate Balance

Assess the Present Start by analyzing each of the five areas we’ve mentioned: yourself, your people, your heart, your resources, and your career. If you have to give yourself a grade, how would you score in each? 

Brainstorm Balance Now that you know which area of your life needs a little more “balance”. If you know your budget is solid but your self-care needs work, what would it look like to bring your self-care back into balance with the rest of your life? What would you be doing? 

Set Your Goals & Create a Plan of Action : It’s not enough to just set your goals. You’ve got to prepare a plan if you want to achieve them! Create an action plan that breaks your goals down into small, specific, and incremental steps; plan solutions to potential obstacles, and create daily action steps. Goal-setting and goal-achieving aren’t nearly as overwhelming when you’ve broken them down and planned for potential problems. 

Make Sure You have SMART goals 

SMART GOALS give you clarity and a deadline for achieving them SMART goals are:

Specific: Your goal is clearly defined. “I want to make more money,” is vague. “I want to make $10,000 per month,” is specific.

Measurable: You need to quantify your goal so you know you achieved it. This is where being a specific help. 

Attainable: It’s good to set goals that make you stretch and challenge yourself, but you set yourself up for frustration and failure if your goal is impossible.

 Relevant: Your goals should fit within your ultimate plans in life. 

 Time: You’ve set a date by which your goal will be achieved.

HOW TO USE A LIFE BALANCE WHEEL TO SET MEANINGFUL GOALS

The Life Balance Wheel aka the Wheel of Life, is a simple, yet powerful, self-assessment tool commonly used in coaching and counseling. The tool is great for self-reflection, and gives you a visual representation of how balanced your life is.

1. SET UP YOUR WHEEL

2. FILL OUT YOUR WHEEL & CONNECT THE DOTS

Now it’s time to think about how fulfilled you are in each life area. Draw a dot between the center, and the outer edge of the wheel to indicate how fulfilled you feel in each life area. The center of the wheel represents 0% and the outer edge represents 100%.

 Make sure you put a lot of thought and reflection into this process to create the most accurate representation of your life balance. After you place all of your dots, connect them all together in a circle.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding where to draw your dots:

• Physical health – How’s your overall diet? Any changes you’d like to make to the way you eat? How do you feel during the day (tired, energetic, fatigued, etc)? How’s your quality of sleep? How often do you exercise?

• Spirituality – How in tune with your beliefs are you? How closely connected do you feel to what you believe in?

• Relationships – Do you have friends/family that you can talk to? How satisfied are you with the quality of relationships in your life? How often do you spend quality time with your loved ones? How easily do you connect with others?

• Creativity – Do you have a creative outlet? Are you utilizing it? How satisfied are you with your creative abilities?

• Career & Finances – How satisfied are you in your current career? Are you in your dream career? or do you need to switch paths? How comfortable are you with your current financial status?

• Personal Development – Are you actively working on your personal development? How well do you really know yourself? How satisfied are you with your personal growth lately?

• Overall Life Vision – How happy are you with the direction your life is headed? How clear is your vision for your future? How satisfied are you with the steps that you’re taking towards that vision?

• Emotional Well-being – How balanced do you feel emotionally? How aware are you of your emotions? How do you process/cope with your emotions?

Now it’s time to set goals for each life area. Here are some ideas to get you started with brainstorming:

• Physical health
• Exercise for 30 minutes
• Meal prep for lunch every week
• Create a consistent workout plan 
• Try a new form of exercise such as yoga, pilates,dance, etc 
• Drink more water

• Spirituality
• Strengthen prayer life
• Explore new spiritual practices (crystals, smudging, incense, meditation, etc.)
• Form relationships with others who have similar spiritual beliefs

• Relationships
• Spend time with close friends
• Have a small family get together once a month
• Identify the people you are closest to and make an effort to talk to them often and reach out for support when you need it
• Creativity
• Explore a new creative outlet
• Actively practice your creative outlet a few times a week
• Find a community of people who consider themselves to be “creatives” and form relationships with them
• Career & Finances 
• Start a side hustle
• Go back to school for a new degree/certification
• Save $1,000 a month

• Personal Development
• Start a daily journaling practice
• Explore more about your personality type
• Listen to an inspirational podcast twice a week
• Read one self-help book a month
• Start a daily mediation practice

• Overall Life Vision 
• Create a vision board to reflect on what you really desire in life
• Reflect on your progress towards your goals every month
• Explore different opportunities and possibilities for your life. Push yourself out of your comfort zone.

• Emotional Well-being 
• Practice self care for at least 10 minutes daily
• Create a self care ritual
• Try counseling/therapy
• Surround yourself with positive, like minded individuals

Do not forget to comment below what are some of the goals you are excited to make a plan for?