How to draw it
- Draw a circle. Divide it into eight equal pie-slices.
- Label each slice with a life category. Default eight: health, career, finances, relationships, family, personal growth, fun and recreation, environment.
- Score each from 1–10. Mark the score on the radius of that slice. 1 is at the centre, 10 is at the edge.
- Connect the marks. The shape that emerges is the wheel.
- Look at the shape. A round wheel rolls. A lopsided wheel doesn't.
What the shape reveals
Most people score 7–9 in the categories where they consciously invest and 2–5 in the categories they neglect. The pattern is rarely a surprise once it's drawn — but the act of drawing makes it explicit.
The coaching question is rarely "how do you raise the low scores?". It's usually "what's stopping you from giving attention to the low-scoring category?" — which leads to values, beliefs, fears, and the actual coaching work.
What to do after the wheel
- Pick the lowest-scoring category (usually).
- Run values elicitation on that category. What's important to you about [this area]?
- Form a well-formed outcome for the category.
- Identify the first concrete action. Make it small enough that it will happen this week.
- Re-draw the wheel in 8–12 weeks. If the score has moved, the work was real. If it hasn't, recalibrate.
Common variations
- Importance scoring. Mark not just satisfaction but importance. Categories that are high-importance and low-satisfaction get the work; high-importance and high-satisfaction get protected; low-importance and low-satisfaction can be parked.
- Time-spent overlay. Mark the proportion of waking hours each category receives. The mismatch with importance is usually striking.
- Business wheel of life. Replace categories with business domains: revenue, product, team, customers, operations, growth, leadership, time. Same exercise, different domain.
Frequently asked questions
What is the wheel of life?
A coaching visualisation that divides life into eight (sometimes six or ten) categories and asks the client to rate satisfaction in each on a scale of 1–10. Connecting the scores draws a shape on the wheel. The shape — and the contrast between high-scoring and low-scoring sections — surfaces where coaching attention is most needed.
Is the wheel of life NLP?
Not originally — it predates NLP and comes from broader coaching practice (often attributed to Paul J. Meyer in the 1960s). But it has become widely used inside NLP coaching as a first-session orientation exercise.
What categories should the wheel include?
Common eight: health, career, finances, relationships, family, personal growth, fun/recreation, environment. Substitute or rename to fit the client's life. A solo founder might replace 'family' with 'team'; a parent might split 'family' into 'partner' and 'children'.
When should I use the wheel of life with a client?
First session, or any time a client feels diffusely stuck and can't name what's bothering them. Drawing the wheel often surfaces the low-scoring category they hadn't articulated — and that becomes the focus.