How Successful Are You Really? Let the Wellness Wheel Decide! The danger most entrepreneurs face is in doing it all alone, and many times they can find their own personal goals lost in the chaos of building an enterprise or business
By Preeti Rao
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Most of us who start working for ourselves have a dream to be our own boss and to be able to create something greater than ourselves. Something beyond the usual fire in the belly is the reason most of us strike out on our own, as well as to get out of the usual nine to five rut in life. Yet, while we sail across the unchartered seas of entrepreneurship and solo enterprise, we often find the proverbial ball and chain tied around our neck once again, telling on both our physical and mental well being.
The Wellness Wheel and the Entrepreneur:
As an entrepreneur running your own business, you are usually responsible to fuel an entire mechanism or machinery. This means that you, yourself need to have enough in yourself to handle the ups and downs and the rigors of business. Similarly, you need to realize that you are beyond your business and enterprise. You are a holistic person with more to you than one aspect, and true success will come with recognition of both professional and personal goals. Like all entrepreneurs you are probably self-motivated and a self-starter, yet your passion to create something might lead to a major disbalance between your personal and professional life. In such cases, one finds many creative and talented people letting go or burning out as they are unable to find the necessary balance within themselves. If one were to explain this, imagine the analogy of a speeding car that goes on four wheels, where each wheel represents an area of your life. If, even one wheel breaks down, you may find yourself faltering and breaking down. Similarly, at each point in your life, you need to assess where you really stand. The Wellness Wheel is a goal setting and coaching tool, used to help you find where you currently stand in life and where you aim to get to. In each case, the measure of your success would depend not just on material success but in satisfaction from other areas of life.
How it works:
Essentially, the Wellness Wheel is divided into different areas or categories that are important to you. The various dimensions cover the most crucial aspects of what brings meaning and fulfillment to our lives. It covers the physical, emotional, financial, spiritual and familial and social dimensions which usually make up the most critical areas for a person. A wellness coach might have different variants of the same wheel, but in most such cases it would have the similar sections. Once completed it will help you fill in the many sections of your life. I many cases, you will find yourself scoring higher or expressing greater satisfaction in some, while others may not be so high scoring. As an entrepreneur you may find yourself scoring higher on professional or altruistic goals, while health or social goals may be lower. Or you may be in a position to give back to society and keen to score higher on self-learning and evolution or community service. In each case, the Wellness Wheel is a great place for you to start and use the self assessment to build a new set of goals for yourself. One of the biggest benefits of the Wellness Wheel is the pictorial representation it gives of your satisfaction with life. When your Wheel is completed, it will give you a spider-like diagram or "inner-circle' of your satisfaction levels and allows you to quickly and easily identify any gaps between where you are now and where you want to be.
Note that the categories on the Wheel are a suggestion. You will find that with the above you will be able to score yourself in the majority of key areas in your life.
The danger most entrepreneurs face is in doing it all alone, and many times they can find their own personal goals lost in the chaos of building an enterprise or business. In such a case it is important to use self-assessment tools that allow you to pause and reflect on where you currently are, where you hope to go and use the in a way to enhance your life. Creating a balance in one's life is a personal to each individual, and a health and wellness coach can help you to discover the meaning and purpose in life, help you to connect and communicate. The coach also helps you to find the fulfillment in your work and push you towards new experiences and ideas so that you may keep growing and grow closer to find the balance in your life.
