How to Untangle the Mess in Your Mind with the Wheel of Life
Sep 18, 2024
Ready for your SAT word of the day? No, really, this one's useful.
ANGST.
It's that feeling in your mind, like there's a tangled mess of thoughts and feelings, just filling your head. It can feel like overwhelm. Stress. Mental chaos that keeps you up at night.
I'm going to share with you a very simple strategy for what to do when you want to untangle that mess in your mind. Maybe you want to find your focus. Maybe you need to decide on the one thing that you need to work on, whether it's self-improvement, or it's a class in your schedule, or it's a relationship, or it's something that you're spending time on that is actually creating conflict in your life.
The Wheel of Life
To implement this very simple strategy, I am going to introduce to you a tool called the Wheel of Life. This is something I use with all of my leadership mastermind classes and the students that I mentor one-on-one.
The Wheel of Life is a visual representation of different key areas in your life: Friendships, Physical Health, Church Life, Family Relationships, Personal Relationship with God (Prayer/Devotional Life), Academic Work, and Extracurricular Activies (includes Sports, Music, Hobbies, Business, Free Time).
What you do with the Wheel of Life is rate the health of each area on a scale from one to ten. Ten means Perfect/Very Healthy--you're satisfied and everything's going great in that area. One means Very Unhealthy--you feel like you're really struggling.
Take a couple of minutes to think through each area and assess them with COMPLETE HONESTY. You're looking for what is bothering you in each area. Notice where the low numbers are. Chances are, that's the area that needs your personal leadership.
Why Focus Matters
The point of this exercise isn't to make you feel bad about the areas where you're not doing as well. Instead, it's to help you see clearly where you need to put your focus. For example, if you score yourself really low in the area of health, maybe that's a sign that you need to make some changes there. Or if your relationships are suffering, maybe that's an area where you need to invest more time and energy.
Taking Action with the Wheel of Life
So once you've completed your Wheel of Life evaluation, the next step is to take action. You can't fix everything at once, but you can start with one thing. Pick the area that needs the most attention and think about one small step you can take today to start improving it.
Maybe it's scheduling a workout, texting a friend to smooth over a conflict, or making time to ask for help on an assignment or project that's stressing you out. The key is to take action. Lead yourself. Taking even a small step in the right direction can give you a sense of progress and help reduce that feeling of overwhelm.
Conclusion
That's how you can clear your mind quickly by using the Wheel of Life. It's a simple tool that can help you get clarity on where you're at and what you need to focus, so you can lead yourself and every area of your life well.
More leadership videos for students: www.youtube.com/@weleadyouth-brendajung
More information about how to work with Brenda through the school year: www.weleadthis.com
