Wendi Pasco-McGregor

Many of us fall into the pattern of looking back and forwards as a new calendar year starts. We set resolutions and new goals, often with patchy success by February! Yet there is value to be gleaned from occasionally stepping back to do our own ‘temperature check’ on how our life is lining up against what we planned or wanted. Have your priorities stayed the same or shifted? Is there a real gap that matters between what your mouth says and what your feet are doing? Are you feeling internally nagged by old ‘shoulds’ that just lurk on your mental ‘to do’ list but somehow never convert to ‘done’? Or have external events forced you to adapt yet you feel in doing so you might have also taken your eye off a couple of other important balls?

When people feel the kind of itch I’ve talked about that brings them to a coach like me, it is often a time when it feels as if the universe laughed while you made plans. As if there is a gap that you can’t quite see clearly enough yet to decide what to do and how. And it isn’t uncommon at all to realize in the process that the itch isn’t 100% what you thought it was…and there are a lot more roads to address it once you see it more clearly.

If this is where you are right now – other than contacting me, of course! – a useful starting place is with something often called A Wellbeing Wheel.

Made up of a circle with at least five dimensions that reflect our basic human needs – Physical, Emotional, Financial, Spiritual and Social – it is a simple framework for looking at your own achievements, needs and priorities. You might personalize it or add other specific dimensions, but it provides a straightforward way to take your own life temperature. And proving that I practice what I ‘preach’, as I’ve just moved house and moved away from some bits of my old life, I am sitting here using it too to plan a few goals and priorities for my next 6 months!