Wheel of Life

A Research Paper By Sing Lee Lim, Career Coach, Performance Coach, Transition Coach, SINGAPORE

The Wheel of Life Coaching

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is more intellectual play. Immanuel Kant

As an HR practitioner, I have come across a few psychometric assessment tools that are commonly used to identify talents and assess strengths or areas of development for leadership and succession planning. At ICA, I have learned of DISC, Strength Finders, Wheel of Life, and Enneagram modules under Frameworks and Models, as powerful coaching tools to help clients to understand more about themselves and the situation they are in. While DISC and Strength Finders are not new to me, I was interested to explore more on Wheel of Life or Enneagram.

To study the tools further, I was planning to invite one of my peer clients to try one of the tools, or both, to grasp the techniques of using the tools with clients, when appropriate. Before this plan became materialized, due to some personal reasons, I had to pause my ICA program for my family’s needs. Although I have temporarily paused my coaching program, I didn’t intend to stop practicing coaching. Hence, I continued my coaching practice with my peers at ICA. Nonetheless, the challenges I was facing were way beyond my ability to handle. Seeing me get stuck and circling nowhere, my peer coach KK had proposed to do a Wheel of Life with me. This suggestion had dawned on me that instead of I coached someone using Wheel of Life or Enneagram, it could serve a better purpose, if I became a client, and benefited from the coaching tool.

Therefore, in this research paper, I am going to share my personal experience with the Wheel of Life coaching tool, from a client’s perspective. I hope this paper would be an interesting read to my fellow coaches who are interested to learn more about Wheel of Life and intend to employ this technique in their coaching.

Wheel of Life Coaching Review

We learn when we reflect on what we have done. KK

The Wheel of Life coaching was completed in 8 sessions, from March 2021 to June 2021. According to KK, we went on this coaching journey due to the following events observed in the last few coaching sessions we had:

1. Family event – my father got a stroke during the pandemic period. Due to restricted movement imposed between states (within Malaysia) and countries (Malaysia and Singapore), the communication was broken between my parents, my siblings, and my side.
2. Career – I had low satisfaction from work. I was performing operational duties which was not the type of career that I had signed up for. Additionally, the long working hours were taxing heavily on me, resulting in a lot of struggles between the needs of work and family, let alone my own wellbeing.
3. Mental wellbeing – key emotions identified were mainly frustration and reactive responses that were so “not like me”.

In the first session, KK did very good homework to present the functions of the Wheel of Life, how it works and the phases we would go through together. She explained in a detailed manner, making sure that I understood thoroughly before we started to identify the key aspects that I gave the most important in my life.

KK and I spent 2 sessions listing down 7 aspects (I was unable to come up with the 8^th aspect) that were essential in my life at that point in time. They were family, career, friendship, me-time, outreach, travel, and learning. Each of them was explored as follows:

1. Family – this meant staying connected; the well-being of my family members was of great importance to me.
   • Before my father’s illness, my satisfaction level on the family aspect was 8 out of 10. Currently, it was 3 out of 10.
   • My communication with family members became less open, and highly stressful when we spoke to each other. Sometimes, it felt like we were testing each other’s boundaries.
   • My expected level was to get back to 8 as my family was the backbone that kept me going.
2. Career– this referred to the job that I did for a living; something I was good at; something I enjoyed doing. I also aspired for my career to move up in a progressive manner, especially when I’d learned more and added value.
   • My current satisfaction level was at 3. I expected it to be 6, at least.
   • I didn’t feel that the current job was the right job for me. It was too operational. I didn’t feel that this job required my established expertise.
   • I was struggling to maintain a work-life balance as the current job took too much of my time.
3. Friendship – I referred to friends as people who were meaningful to me; they could be someone I met through work or social networks. We could hold meaningful conversations. I could be at ease or relaxed with them. I treasured them and wanted to stay connected.
   • My current satisfaction level was at 6. I was comfortable staying around 6-7 out of 10. However, I expected to bring it up to 7, when I could meet people in person when the pandemic was over.
   • I would like to have regular catch-up with my friends. However, when I got other priorities, I didn’t put into action to stay in touch.
   • Due to the pandemic, the feeling of disconnection grew stronger within me.
4. Me-time – this referred to the time that I could do something that I wanted or needed. During these moments, I could entirely be myself and did anything that I liked or made me look or felt good.
   • My current satisfaction level was at 5. I expected to bring it up to 8.
   • So far, I had managed to keep most of my Sundays open for me-time. However, due to my current workload, my recent me-time was dependent on my ability to complete most of the tasks by the day or week.
5. Outreach – this referred to participation in social work as a volunteer or helping friends who were in need. With this, I could continue interacting with society and enhanced my exposure.
   • My current satisfaction level was at 3. I was fine to remain as is.
   • I joined a local community network in 2017. In 2020, I was nominated as the vice-chairman.
   • Currently, I was taking a backseat due to my family and work situation.
   • I envisioned continuing to play this part as a supporting role.
6. Travel – This referred to the time I got refreshed, came back with new perspectives, and was able to see things differently. It was also a reward for a year of hard work, a good chance to foster friendship (when traveling with friends), and relationships (when traveling with family members).
   • My current satisfaction level was at 1. I was fine to remain as is, due to the pandemic.
   • I went on a short cruising trip with friends.
7. Learning – This referred to non-work-related and structured learning that I could feel the progress. It could be as simple as doing a handicraft. It brought self-fulfillment, which was crucial to my learning principle.
   • My current satisfaction level was at 4. I was fine to remain as is.
   • My most recent learning initiative was the ICA coaching program. Albeit I had put it to a pause, I didn’t feel stagnant because the coaching practice was ongoing.

The key theme was a connection with others and self.

Family, Career, Me-Time, and Friendship Analysis Using the Wheel of Life

Based on the overall assessment, the key areas to work on were family, career, me-time, and friendship. KK and I had chartered an action plan to improve my satisfaction level with family and career, which I believed were the cornerstone of all aspects of my life. We first looked at the career aspect. KK asked the following questions (in my recollection) to help me get started:

• With the unsatisfied areas identified, where do you want to look first?
• What is the one baby step you could take now?
• Who could support you to initiate the first step?
• What resources could help you to move forward?
• What are the potential obstacles that may prevent you from moving forward?

We had come up with a 3-month plan to tackle this area. We changed our coaching session from weekly to bi-weekly, which was easier for me to summarize my deliverables while monitoring my progress.

For the family aspect, KK asked the following questions (also from my recollection)to help me to get clarity on what I needed to do next:

• What is the most important thing for you now?
• Who would be the key person in helping you to mend the relationship?
• You mentioned that you felt guilty…. What could you do to be less guilty?
• How do you feel now?
• If there is one thing you could do differently, what would that be?

These questions helped me to reflect a lot on my recent interactions with my family. Especially the last question often played back in my mind. Each time when I spoke to my family, I kept asking myself – is this the best way you could respond? What else? As a result, I found that a timeline won’t work for my family aspect, as most interactions were spontaneous. Hence, my key takeaway on the family aspect was to go with the flow “顺其自然”.

Wheel of Life as a Coaching Tool

Go with the flow. Force nothing. Let it happen… trusting that whichever way it goes. It is for the best. Mandy Hale

KK and I reviewed my milestones on a monthly basis. 3 months later, we were delighted to learn that by focusing on the top priorities in family and career areas, I had achieved my expected goals. My energy had shifted from negative to positive. I had more smiles on my face when I shared my achievements.

For the career aspect, I had reached 8 out of 10, instead of my expected level of 6. I left the company and joined a new company. Before joining the new company, I had carefully examined the company’s culture and the work environment to ensure I could blend in well. During the 3-month period, I spent the first month working on a smooth handover with the last company. The action plan catered for this purpose was executed without fail. Next, I spent the remaining 2 months to adapt into the new work environment, getting to know more people that I would work with, completing all onboarding tasks, and starting to add value to my team’s projects. Through my reflection with KK, I learned that a positive mentality was the key to progressing well at work. I had also learned to show gratitude to people around me, who had made my day better.

For the family aspect, I had reached 7 out of 10. Originally, my intended level was 8. I rated it 7 because I didn’t put in a lot of effort to make it better. The improvement came naturally when I stopped expecting this or that from my family members. I went with the flow when things happened or in any discussions. Another contributor to my family aspect was my job. I found that my career was the cornerstone of impacting family, friendship, and travel. When a career worked out right, everything fell into its own place naturally.

Another learning I had was the association between my career and family. My achievement at work and financial stability (source of income) were related to my self-confidence level, which played a pivotal role in the way I handled my family matters. This new awareness helped me in a great way. I became more thoughtful when speaking with my family members. I would try my best to leave the work-related topics out of my discussions with family so my emotion could remain as calm as I could. It is also interesting to discover that my me-time had a positive correlation to my career and family aspects.

Lastly, thanks to KK, I was able to share this much of details on my Wheel of Life coaching journey in this paper. I could not have achieved the research goal without KK. Her dedication and passion were instrumental to this research, as well as my personal well-being.

Below, allow me to share KK’s conclusion to conclude this paper.

“I wanted to create this for you because this journey to self is very memorable. Having this journey in writing can help reflect and bring further awareness.

We’ve explored what brings wholeness to your life, how the outside world and events interact with you and we reflect on your inner values and behaviors.

And before you review your journey again, a BIG THANK YOU to you because you are attending to your needs. You have my recognition because you are the one who made things progress positively. And it is my honor to witness your progress and learnings.

The focus will be the key learnings that we have discovered, and they are the moments that contributed to our “virtual high-fives” and the tear in our eyes during the session.”

References

(2021).The Wheel of Life – Reflection Notes