When you start feeling discouraged, anxious, or overwhelmed, that means it’s time to STOP and become AWARE of what is happening.
Many of you have heard of the “Wheel of Life.” It’s something you can use to guide yourself as you look at your life and focus your personal growth. You choose the main elements of your life, and evaluate them one at a time to see where you need to make the most progress.
But sometimes we’re not in a place to think about our “overall personal growth.” We’re facing a challenge. We need to make a change. We’re stuck.
The Wheel of “Stuckness”
Sometimes our “stuckness” feels like an overarching thing. It isn’t that this one thing in our lives is stuck—we feel that WE are stuck! Unfortunately, unless you’re physically stuck in a hole somewhere, “getting unstuck” isn’t a very clear objective!
Check out the 2 Wheel Diagrams. See the major zones of life. (You can adjust these to be the 8 major areas of your life if yours are different.) Print the diagram if you’d like to make this exercise super tangible.
STEP 2:
Start with the first circle. This is the WILD Wheel. Go ONE AREA AT A TIME, and evaluate on a scale of 1-5 how long it has been since you’ve tried something new in that area. This is your WILD score.
If you put a 1 in a section, it means you can’t remember the last time you tried something new, made a change, or done things differently. Maybe you’ve been avoiding risk. You’ve been distracted with other things. Maybe you feel like this area is fine, and believe that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
If you give yourself a score of 5, that means you’re constantly trying new things. You’ve taken a risk really recently, or you’re still in the process of adjusting to the big change you’ve made.
Once you’ve chosen a number 1-5 for every slice of the WILD Wheel, move on to the next step.
STEP 3:
This is the BRAVE Box. Just like before, go ONE AREA AT A TIME, completing each line from the top down. This time, though, ask yourself this question:
“If I were to break out and move forward in this area of my life, what would be the one forward step I could take?”
STEP 4:
If you have an answer to the question in Step 3, check the box at the front of the line. If you can check that box, it means there is something you already know to do that can break you out of being stuck in that area! All you need now is to be BRAVE enough to take that step.
Why We’re Stuck
One thing I’ve found to be true is that we usually aren’t stuck because we don’t have any clue what to do. We’re stuck because we have closed ourselves to change and or haven’t marshaled our bravery to do what we know we should do.
Why do I evaluate these as two separate elements? Take this example, and see what it can do.
Interpreting Your Score
Say for example, I gave myself a Wild Score of 1 in the area of career, and I have my Brave Box checked. That means I may need BIG bravery in order to take that step. If I’ve got that 1 Wild Score, it means I haven’t gotten out of my comfort zone in that area for a while. Using the Wild Wheel, I can prepare myself and recognize that there’s a reason I haven’t branched out before now—it is going to take more than your average bravery to make that change! By recognizing the size of the bravery required, I can prepare myself appropriately and end up having much greater success making the change.
If, in another example, I gave myself a Wild Score of 5 in the area of health, but I couldn’t check the Brave Box for that area, it tells me something important. It means that even though I’ve been trying lots of things, I’m at a point that in order to break out, I need some outside insight. Being brave means taking an intentional step. If you’ve tried all the wild things you could think of, and exhausted your ideas for how to change things it means you no longer have the clarity necessary to take an intentional step. The next step then, is to reach outside for fresh, reliable ideas in order to make bravery possible.
Whether you’re using this wheel for yourself, with a friend, or one of your coaching clients, it will do one major thing: You can see in black-and-white that you aren’t stuck in EVERY way, and you DO have a next step that can be taken. If you use it honestly, it can help turn that feeling of being “completely stuck” into the clarity that says “it may be hard, and will require change, but if I do ______, I don’t have to stay stuck forever.”
Get Wild + Brave
Schedule a Free Coaching Session to learn more about what Wild + Brave can look like in your life. Get unstuck and stay unstuck – all the way to your next breakthrough!
If you’re looking for a scientifically-based way pathway to getting fully in the driver’s seat of your own life, check out our Wild + Brave Life in 90 Days, the most powerful coaching program we’ve ever designed. What would YOU do if you were brave?
As a Registered Nurse and Whole Health Coach, I have observed that most people are unhappy with some aspect of their health and it distracts or prevents them from fully focusing on their major life goals. It happens to me too!
Last year, I began experiencing weight gain for the first time in my life. Even though I was eating cleaner and exercising more than I ever had, my weight began to gradually creep up.
Emotions are strong. Stakes are high. Opinions differ.
But something has to be done. A decision must be made, a problem must be addressed, an idea needs evaluation. But how do you communicate to a boss who only wants her words to come out of your mouth? What happens when you’ve made a mistake? Is there a way to get what you need at home or work without getting control and forcing your opinion?
I am always grateful for the opportunity to learn from a winner, someone who has demonstrated measurable excellence. Recently I had the privilege of interviewing local triathlete champion, Rebecca Youngblood. As you probably know, a triathlon is a race that involves swimming, biking, and running….grueling, to say the very least!
While we may not be training for a triathlon or any athletic competition, each of us has an arena in life that we seek to exemplify measurable excellence, whether it be in our homes, in our businesses, in our communities, or in our relationships.
When I was a little girl, my mom used to tell me each morning as I headed off to school: “Think Pretty.” As I became older, I came to understand that she meant that I should think about lovely things: the good – not the bad, the beautiful – not the ugly. That I should look for the “pretty” every day.
Since Mother’s Day was this past Sunday, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my mother and the best way to honor her. This year has been especially difficult, as she was recently diagnosed with dementia, which is the loss of cognitive functioning to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities.
In many churches this past Sunday, they lit the Candle of Hope to signify the beginning of Advent. If you are a person of the Christian faith, hope is what Christmas is all about…But hope isn’t reserved for religious circles. It seems that people have always felt that hope is an antidote to the evils of the world. And now that science is on the side of hope, you might be surprised at what two decades of research has found out about this four letter word.
