If I asked you WHERE ARE YOU what would you say? 

Is the first thing you think of your physical location?

What if I rephrased the question and asked,

WHERE ARE YOU IN EVERY AREA OF YOUR LIFE?

Now that’s a totally different question and will have a totally different answer.

In the Lean world we refer to this as the CURRENT STATE.

If you were planning a physical journey you would first need to know where you are planning that journey from in order to get where you are going! The same principle applies in goal setting – before we set our goals we must first know where we are starting from – we must know our CURRENT STATE.

Below are 3 simple steps to evaluate WHERE YOU ARE  in each area of your life. 

STEP 1:

Divide your life into categories, this makes it easier to set goals and also easier to see  progress on these goals.

I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life – the categories I use are Sense of Self, Health, Relationships, Finance, Work, Experiences/Fun, Environment & Contribution. You can use these categories or create your own.

STEP 2:

Go through each category in your Wheel of Life and answer the question,

WHERE ARE YOU IN EACH AREA OF YOUR LIFE?

I love visualising where I am in life through colour.

The below image is a scale that is widely used for mental health evaluation. You can use this for your Wheel of Life which will give you an effective snapshot of how you are functioning in all areas of your life.

You simply assign the appropriate heading and corresponding colour to each area of your life.

Not only will this give you a very colourful Wheel of Life, it will also highlight the areas of your life that require the most attention.

It’s most likely that your Wheel of Life will have a mixture of all colours, you more than likely will be thriving in some areas and struggling in others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEP 3:

Go through each category in your Wheel of Life and answer the question,

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?

❤️ If you are in crisis or struggling in some areas then they need your attention and focus first

🧡 If you are just surviving in some areas then they need your attention and focus next

💚 If you are thriving or excelling in some areas, they don’t need as much attention yet it’s important to give them enough attention and focus so they don’t slip back into orange and red

Of course we’d all love to be thriving and excelling in all areas of our lives but that’s just not realistic, life doesn’t work like that.

There is always some challenge, some struggle, some obstacle to overcome.

💚 My goal isn’t to be excelling and thriving in all areas. 

❤️ My goal is to stay out of crisis mode and if I find myself there, that I move out of it as quickly as possible.

🧡 I also don’t want to be struggling in any area for too long.

Below is my Wheel of Life for at the start of 2025. My priority for the start of 2025 will be setting goals to focus on the red areas to get them out of the red zone.  I will then focus on the orange areas and move as many as possible into green which for me is a stable place.

Anything in green isn’t priority yet I’ll keep ticking away at those areas so they don’t fall into orange and red. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter where you are at the start of this year, it is just your starting point.

Where you go depends on your goals and how much work you put into them.

• What will be different for you in 2025?
• Where do you want to be at the end of 2025?
• Who do you want to be at the end of 2025?

I write a weekly newsletter, if you want to join it just download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below, see you there 

Thanks for reading 

Siobhain

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