Wheel of Life assessment
Rate your satisfaction across eight life areas. Your results appear as a visual wheel and show you where to focus.
The Wheel of Life is the most widely used opening exercise in life coaching. It takes a broad, diffuse feeling that something is off and turns it into a clear picture of which specific areas are contributing most. Rate each area from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 10 (highly satisfied), based on how you feel right now, not how you think you should feel.
Rate your life areas
1 = very dissatisfied, 10 = very satisfied
Your wheel updates as you move the sliders.
What your wheel is showing
Adjust the sliders above to see your personalized insight here.
How coaches use the Wheel of Life
The Wheel of Life is one of the first tools a coach introduces in a new client relationship, and it does several things at once. It externalises the client's internal state onto paper (or a screen), making it easier to talk about. It shows at a glance which areas are dragging down the overall quality of life. And it provides a baseline to return to when measuring progress over time.
The three questions every coach asks
- Which area has the lowest score, and what would a one-point improvement look like? Starting with the lowest score builds momentum quickly. A concrete, small improvement is easier to commit to than a vague ambition to "sort out finances."
- Which area, if improved, would have the biggest ripple effect on the others? Areas are not independent. A health improvement often raises energy, which improves career performance, which reduces financial stress. Identifying the highest-leverage area is where skilled coaching adds the most value.
- Which area feels most urgent to the client, even if the score is not the lowest? Energy matters more than arithmetic. A client who is distracted by a relationship issue will not be ready to focus on career development, regardless of what the scores suggest. Coaching always follows the client's readiness.
Comparing wheels over time
The most motivating use of the Wheel of Life is as a before-and-after comparison. Revisiting the assessment every three months gives clients a visual record of their progress that is more compelling than any verbal description of change. A wheel that has grown more even over six months of coaching is concrete evidence that the work is producing results.
Using this as a coach
If you are a coach or planning to become one, the Wheel of Life is one of the foundational tools in your practice. The Life and Career Institute training covers how to facilitate the wheel exercise in a paid session, how to help clients identify which area to start with, and how to turn the insights into a 90-day coaching plan.
Life Coach Certification
Covers the full range of life coaching tools, including the Wheel of Life, values elicitation, goal-setting frameworks, and the techniques that turn insight into lasting behavioral change.
See the courseCareer Coach Certification
Focuses on how to use tools like the Wheel of Life in a career context: helping clients identify where work is affecting life balance, and where life circumstances are shaping career choices.
See the courseFrequently asked questions
What is the Wheel of Life?
The Wheel of Life is a coaching tool that helps you assess your current level of satisfaction across eight key life areas. By rating each area from 1 to 10, you create a visual snapshot of where your life feels balanced and where it feels out of round. It is one of the most widely used starting-point exercises in life coaching because it makes abstract dissatisfaction concrete and actionable.
How do I use my Wheel of Life results?
Look for the areas with the lowest scores. These are usually where clients feel the most friction, though not always where they expect to start. A good coaching conversation uses the wheel as a map, not a verdict: a low score in finances might actually be driven by a career issue, and a low career score might trace back to confidence or purpose. Start with the area that has the most energy around it.
How often should I redo the Wheel of Life?
Most coaches recommend revisiting the wheel every three months. It gives you enough time for meaningful change while keeping the picture current. Comparing two wheels side by side shows progress clearly, which is motivating even when a client feels stuck.
Can the Wheel of Life be used in career coaching?
Yes. Career coaches use the wheel to show clients how their work life is affecting other domains, and vice versa. A client who says their career is the problem often has wheel results that reveal the real driver is elsewhere, such as a home environment that makes it impossible to focus, or a social life that disappeared when a demanding job arrived.
What are the eight areas of the Wheel of Life?
The eight areas most coaches use are: Health and Fitness, Career and Work, Financial, Relationships and Family, Personal Development, Social and Fun, Physical Environment, and Purpose or Contribution. Some coaches adapt the areas to their niche, and the Life and Career Institute training covers how to customize the wheel for different client types.
Is the Wheel of Life a validated assessment?
The Wheel of Life is a qualitative coaching exercise, not a psychometric instrument. It reflects a client's subjective experience rather than measuring an objective state, which is exactly what makes it useful: a client's perception of where their life is working is the starting point for any coaching conversation, regardless of what an external measure might show.
