Читать книгу System life. How to organize life to cope with uncertainty and achieve results without burnout - Семён Колосов - Страница 8

To analyze the current state of life, you can use the pop tool «Balance Wheel». Don’t rush to close the book. It’s not what you think. The balance wheel is used by different coaches, it has become boring to everyone and seems a bit childish. But no matter how cool and smart you are, this tool clearly shows the situation and raises questions about itself. More than once I observed the reaction «Oh, c’mon, why do we need this wheel anyway» when people filled it in. And then they could not tear themselves away in reasoning about what this wheel consists of, and what kind of assessment should be put there. It doesn’t matter in what form you do it, even if it’s just a list. The grades you set are important. For example, I just use columns, as in the equalizer in the player.

Balance equalizer

The main goal is not to balance the wheel, but to see your life settings. So, you can make an upper-level slice to move from the general to the particular. How to set a preset in the equalizer and make more subtle settings? For example, you select «rock» and the sliders fall into place. Then you tweak it for yourself and get a sound that suits you. So, let’s use the concept of «Balance equalizer», not «Wheel». And we will also agree that our goal is to see the current state of the spheres of life, and not to balance them. I don’t believe that the wheel can be balanced in general. It will change over the course of life, as values and the concept of happiness will change. Therefore, it will look different in different periods.

You know perfectly well what to do. Take a piece of paper or an online service. Draw 10 columns: «health», «energy», «time», «family», «love», «finances», «friends/environment», «career/business», «hobbies», «development». This is the base, and usually it is enough. Once it was decided that the balance of these spheres would make life happy. All people are unique and think in their own categories. Therefore, the wheel format raises questions again. Everything that you consider an important part of life, you can add as a new column. For example, I add «recreation», «sports» and «nutrition» separately. They are included in the «health» by default, but it is important for me to see and record the assessment separately. There is no need to delve into and come up with what is included in each item. If it’s hard to figure out, then divide one item into two different ones. When the columns are ready, then evaluate each sphere on a 10-point scale, where from 0 to 3 is a complete absence or minimal satisfaction; from 4 to 7 is an average degree, something has already been achieved, but not ideal; from 8 to 10 is maximum satisfaction.

It is important to identify fundamental problem areas. To improve anything, you need to understand what is wrong there now. Then fix it, achieve stability and then further growth. Very often, after watching enough successful posts or seeing an imbalance in the balance wheel, people immediately think about high goals and begin to take rash actions. For example, they buy a gym membership, and then it gets dusty on the table since there is a lot of work, no strength, etc. It’s not their fault. This is how our brain works. It doesn’t understand the past and the future. It perceives thoughts about a beautiful body as if you already have a beautiful body. Gives you a kick, you do harsh things, and then comes up with an explanation to save energy. At such moments, the owner of the fitness club rejoices and pumps the sphere of finance in the balance wheel at your expense. If you didn’t know, then fitness clubs know about this mechanism, and this is their earnings model. You buy a subscription and don’t go there. Just send your money and that’s it. It’s perfect. By this I want to say that before you aim at a big goal, you need to patch holes in fundamental things.

If you have from 1 to 3 on the balance wheel in the areas of «health», «energy», «time», «finance», then starting to move towards a big goal is like bailing out water with a bucket in a boat with a hole. It is always necessary to solve fundamental problems first in order to be in line for new changes. Evaluate your spheres of life, highlight the areas with the smallest ratings. Then line them up in a list from the most important to the least important. The top 4 must include: «health», «energy», «time» and «finance». If you have bad grades there, then forget about everything else for now and concentrate on them. Without them, you simply will not be able to start and finish the job.