Wheel of life
Shade each slice from the center: 1 near the middle, 10 at the rim.
- Health
- Work
- Money
- Home
- Love
- Friends and family
- Fun and rest
- Growth
From Stella, your emotional wellness AI
Wheel of life: rate your eight areas
Rate eight areas from 1 to 10 and see the shape.
Your wheel fills in as you rate each area.
How to fill in your wheel of life
A wheel of life is a circle cut into eight areas of your life. You rate each one from 1 to 10 for how it feels right now, and the shape shows where things feel full and where they feel thin. It takes a few minutes, and you can print your wheel or a blank one.
Rate each area
Go through the eight areas one at a time and pick a number from 1 to 10. A 1 is far from how you'd like it. A 10 is just how you'd like it. The wheel fills in as you go.
Make it fit your life
Rename any area that doesn't fit, or leave one blank. Add a short line on why you chose a number, so the card still makes sense when you look at it later.
Keep your wheel
See all eight on one card, then copy it or print it. There's no total and no average. The numbers are yours, and so is what you make of them.
Examples: two wheels filled in for this page
Two wheels written for this page, to show how the numbers and the lines can read. Neither is a real person's wheel.
Example written for this page
Emma, 34, three months after moving cities
Health: 5. Sleeping badly since the move.
Work: 7. The new team is good, the commute isn't.
Money: 6.
Home: 4. Still boxes in the hall.
Love: 8.
Friends and family: 3. Everyone I'd call is two hours away.
Fun and rest: 4.
Growth: 6. Started the pottery class.
Example written for this page
Sam, 52, with two areas renamed
Health: 6.
Work: 5. Counting the years to retirement.
Money: 7.
Home: 8.
Caring for Dad (renamed from Love): 3. Most weekends, and it's a lot.
Friends and family: 6.
Fun and rest: 2. Weekends go to errands.
The garden (renamed from Growth): 9.
The eight areas, and how to swap one
Most wheels use eight areas, though the names vary. These are the eight on this page, in order around the wheel from the top.
If an area doesn't fit your life, rename it. Someone caring for a parent might swap Love for Caring. Someone between jobs might call Work Looking for work. Keep the name short enough to read at a glance, and leave an area blank if it doesn't apply right now.
- Health
- Sleep, energy and how your body feels.
- Work
- Your job, studies or whatever fills your days.
- Money
- How much room you have, and how it sits with you.
- Home
- Where you live and how it feels to come back to.
- Love
- A partner, or how you feel about not having one.
- Friends and family
- The people you lean on, and who leans on you.
- Fun and rest
- Time that's yours, for play or for nothing at all.
- Growth
- Learning, making things, becoming more yourself.
Reading the shape, not the numbers
Some pages call this a wheel of life assessment and hand you a result. This one doesn't. There's no total and no average here, because the numbers aren't a grade. A 4 in one area isn't worse than a 6 in another. Each is your sense of that area, on one day.
What tends to help is the shape. Look for the slice that pulls the wheel out of round, and ask what would move it by one point. Not to 10, just one. That question is easier to answer than “how do I fix my life”.
If one area keeps coming up, it may help to write about it. The letter to your future self is one place to say what's unsettled, and the core values quiz can help you see why an area matters to you. Looking for the feelings wheel instead? That's a different wheel: it helps you find the word for what you feel.
Wheel of life template to print
Prefer paper? Under the tool, Print a blank wheel prints the eight slices with rings from 1 to 10 and a line beside each area. It uses the names on screen, so rename an area first if you want your own.
To do the wheel of life exercise by hand, shade each slice from the center out to your number: 1 near the middle, 10 at the rim. Date the sheet. When something big changes, or every few months, fill in a new one and set the two side by side.
Where the wheel of life came from
The wheel of life is usually credited to Paul J. Meyer, the founder of Success Motivation Institute. Coaches and writers have made many versions since, with different areas and different names. You'll also see it called a life balance wheel.
This page is one more version, in plain words: eight areas, a number for each, and room for a line on why. It isn't a test, and nobody grades it.
When talking it through helps
A wheel shows where things feel thin. It can't ask why work feels like a 3 this month, or which slice to start with. That part is often easier to work out by talking it through.
Stella is your emotional wellness AI. You can tell her what's going on by voice or text, and she helps you think it through and choose a small step when you're ready.
Questions about the wheel of life
What is the wheel of life?
The wheel of life is a circle divided into areas of your life, such as health, work, money and the people around you. You rate each area for how it feels right now, usually from 1 to 10, and the filled-in wheel shows at a glance which parts feel full and which feel thin.
What are the eight areas of the wheel of life?
On this page they are health, work, money, home, love, friends and family, fun and rest, and growth. Other versions split them differently, for example into career and finances, or add an area such as community. There's no official set. Rename any area here so the wheel describes your life.
How do I rate each area?
Ask how that part of your life feels right now, compared with how you'd like it to feel. A 1 is far from it and a 10 is just right. Go with the first number that seems honest, not the one you think it ought to be. Add a line on why if the number needs explaining.
Is there a good number to have?
No. The ratings are your own sense of each area on one day, not a grade, so this page shows no total and no average. A wheel with a few low slices is ordinary, especially during a move, a new job or a stretch of caring for someone. The shape is the useful part. It shows where to look first.
Who created the wheel of life?
It's usually credited to Paul J. Meyer, the founder of Success Motivation Institute. Coaches and writers have adapted it many times since, which is why you'll see versions with different numbers of areas and different names. This page uses eight areas, and you can rename any of them to fit your life.