The Wheel of Life is a visual coaching tool that helps clients reflect on key areas of their lives, from career and relationships to health and purpose. By rating their satisfaction in each category, they create a clear snapshot of their life balance and can identify where they’d like to grow.
It’s a popular coaching tool for a reason — it’s simple, adaptable, and highly effective. Whether used in a coaching session or for personal reflection, the Wheel of Life helps spark clarity, set priorities, and lay the groundwork for meaningful goal-setting.
Let’s explore what makes this tool so powerful, how to use it in your life coaching practice, and why it continues to resonate with new and experienced coaches alike.
*Disclaimer: This tool is designed for coaching and personal reflection. It is not a therapeutic or diagnostic instrument and should not replace mental health support.
What is the Wheel of Life?
As the name suggests, the Wheel of Life is a circle divided into segments, each representing an important area of life, such as health, relationships, career, or finances. Clients rate their current satisfaction in each category, usually on a scale of 1–10, then connect the points to form a shape within the circle.
This creates a powerful visual representation and gives them a helicopter view of their overall life balance. Some areas may feel full and thriving, while others appear out of sync. The result helps clients reflect on where they are, where they’d like to be, and what’s missing.
Because the Wheel is both structured and flexible, it invites honest self-assessment without judgment. It’s widely used in coaching because it helps surface insights and priorities quickly, making it easier to start meaningful conversations and set intentional goals.
Where the Wheel of Life came from
The Wheel of Life is often credited to motivational speaker and personal development pioneer Paul J. Meyer, who introduced it in the 1960s as a tool to support goal setting and personal growth. Since then, it’s become a staple in coaching and self-improvement spaces because of its simplicity, clarity, and adaptability.
It’s an easy-to-use worksheet that both new and experienced coaches can rely on to help clients evaluate key areas of life. And its flexibility means you can customize it to suit each client’s values and priorities, making it just as relevant today as it was decades ago.
Common life categories included
The Wheel of Life exercise doesn’t rely on a fixed set of segments. Instead, it can be customized to reflect what matters most to different individuals. That’s what makes it so useful for coaching.
Here are some of the most commonly used categories:
- Finances
- Family and friends
- Marriage or romantic relationships
- Community
- Fun and leisure
- Career or work
- Spirituality or purpose
- Health and well-being
- Education or learning
- Physical environment
You can always tailor the Wheel to fit each client’s season of life and what they’re currently navigating.
For example:
- A retired client may choose to swap the career aspect for retirement planning or financial stability.
- Someone navigating a move might want to focus more on their physical environment or sense of community.
- A new parent may want to add a category for parenting or family dynamics, especially if that area feels particularly challenging.
Customizing the categories not only makes the exercise more relevant, but it also helps clients feel more seen and supported from the start. Using the Wheel of Life tool, you can meet clients where they are and guide them toward greater balance in the areas that matter most.
Why it resonates with clients
The Wheel is a powerful tool for coaches and their clients. It offers a non-intimidating, visual overview of their life, helping them see where they’re thriving and where they may feel stuck.
Having their life balance laid out so clearly can spark reflection and highlight areas they might want to explore or shift their focus to. And because the tool encourages insight without judgment, it can help clients feel more empowered to make changes.
It also naturally supports growth-focused conversations, helping clients identify which categories are most important to them and where they’d like to focus when setting goals. For example, someone with low satisfaction in their finances may be motivated to take action in that area and build new habits for improvement.
How coaches use the Wheel of Life in sessions
Many life coaches introduce the Wheel of Life early in the coaching relationship. It’s a simple yet effective way to build trust, spark meaningful dialogue, and lay the groundwork for a more balanced life. It also gives both coach and client a shared visual starting point for setting measurable, values-based goals.
Introduce the tool and invite reflection
Coaches typically guide clients through each category on the Wheel, offering brief explanations and adjusting the segments to reflect the client’s priorities. Then, the client rates their level of satisfaction in each area from 1–10.
This process alone can lead to greater self-awareness and open the door to rich conversations. Clients may reflect on why a certain area received a high or low rating, or they may even discover patterns they hadn't noticed that could be impacting their progress or overall well-being, leading them to revisit their goals.
For instance, a client might realize that, due to focusing so much on career growth, they’ve neglected their health, work-life balance, or social connections.
Use the results to guide the session
The life balance wheel naturally brings a client’s priorities and values to the surface, giving you both a clear starting point. As you review the results together, explore which areas feel out of alignment and which ones matter most to them. From there, you can identify where they’d like to make meaningful changes.
Not every category carries equal weight, and the goal isn’t to reach a perfect 10 across the board. Instead, ask your client where they’d like to be in each area. The biggest gaps between current and desired scores often reveal powerful entry points for goal setting.
Revisit the Wheel over time
The Wheel isn’t a one-and-done tool. It’s something you can return to throughout the coaching relationship. As your client progresses or life circumstances shift, the Wheel helps you realign goals and keep sessions relevant.
For instance, a client returning to work after parental leave might want to focus more on career growth or time management. Someone adjusting after a divorce may choose to replace the marriage category with something more fitting, like self-discovery or solo parenting.
You can also use the Wheel to track personal growth. Checking in on ratings at key milestones helps clients visualize progress, celebrate wins, and adjust their focus as needed.
Tips for using the Wheel of Life as a new coach
Thanks to its simplicity and flexibility, the Wheel is an easy visual tool to bring into sessions, even for those new to life coaching. But you don’t have to wait for your first client to try it.
Try the exercise on yourself first
The Wheel is a powerful self-assessment tool, especially when you’re just starting out. Completing it yourself helps you understand how it works, so you can build up confidence before using it with clients. It also shows you firsthand how insightful the exercise can be.
Choose categories that reflect the areas of your life that you want to focus on, then rate your satisfaction in each one. This might prompt you to work on your own imbalances, giving you valuable perspective as both a coach and a client.
At the Jay Shetty Certification School, the Wheel of Life is just one of many powerful strategies students practice throughout their training. You’ll also get feedback from peers and mentors to help you refine your coaching practices and grow with confidence.
Ready to support your clients with proven tools and techniques? Join our program today!
Customize the categories
The Wheel’s flexibility is one of its greatest strengths. You can easily adapt the categories to reflect each client’s values and path. For example, one person might include parenting or spirituality, while another may want to focus on community or creative expression.
It’s also useful when a client feels overwhelmed or uncertain. If someone says, “something feels off,” but they can’t pinpoint what, the Wheel can help reveal what’s going on beneath the surface. For clients with too many priorities, it brings structure to their thoughts and helps them approach change one step at a time.
By exploring these different areas of life over time, clients gain clarity, build awareness, and work toward a greater sense of balance.
Pair it with strong coaching questions
Using the Wheel isn’t just about collecting ratings. It’s about turning those insights into meaningful conversations. Thoughtful coaching questions help deepen reflection and move the discussion toward action. You can use these prompts to explore values, uncover patterns, and guide the goal-setting process.
Many coaches pair the Wheel with GROW model coaching questions (Goal, Reality, Options, Will) to give sessions more structure and help clients move from awareness to action. This framework helps clients explore where they want to go, where they are now, what options they have, and how they’ll commit to moving forward.
Here are a few examples to try:
- What does a 10 look like in your key categories?
- Which area would you most like to focus on?
- Did any of your ratings surprise you or reveal something unexpected?
- How do you currently spend time across these areas?
Questions like these encourage clients to reflect on what’s working, what’s missing, and what changes they’re ready to make.
Use it early to build trust and momentum
You don’t need to wait until you know a client’s background or values in detail before introducing the Wheel. In fact, using it in the first or second session can help them feel seen and understood right away. It also sets the tone for trust and collaboration, creating space for honest reflection.
Starting with this tool gives coaching conversations a clear, meaningful entry point. It helps clients clarify their strengths, pinpoint areas for growth, and set priorities for meaningful change. That early clarity can spark motivation and build momentum that carries forward in their personal development journey.
Keep it simple and stay curious
The Wheel’s widespread use comes down to its simplicity. It’s easy for clients to understand and offers immediate value without needing complex interpretation or in-depth analysis.
To help clients gain the most from it, focus on asking open-ended questions and engaging in active listening. Remember, your role as a life coach isn’t to always have the perfect insights or “right” answers. In fact, striving for perfection can get in the way of genuine connection.
Your presence, curiosity, and willingness to explore with the client will do far more to support their life satisfaction than any polished framework ever could.
Build up your coaching confidence one tool at a time
The Wheel of Life offers a simple, powerful way to help coaching clients reflect, find clarity, and act. Whether you use it to guide a first session or revisit it over time to track progress, it creates space for authentic conversations and real growth across different areas of life.
At the Jay Shetty Certification School, tools like this are just the beginning. Our program blends structure, mindfulness, and heart-centered coaching to help you build confidence and lead meaningful practice sessions with growing confidence from day one. If the Wheel resonates with you, chances are you’ll feel right at home with our approach.
Ready to grow as a coach and support others in finding balance? Join our program today.
