It's easy to get engrossed in one area of our life or to feel like something's missing, but not be able to pinpoint what needs attention. Or worse, to try to fix everything at once and end up overwhelmed.
The 10 Dimensions of Life framework addresses all of the above. Building on Aristotle's foundational work on human flourishing, I've expanded his four dimensions — physical, emotional, mental, and social — to include six more that capture how we actually live and thrive today.1
If our Momentum Planners support you with figuring out how and when, the 10 Dimensions help you figure out the what and why.
The ten dimensions are:
Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Play
Professional
Romantic
Family
Financial
Community
The first five can be grouped as “self-focused” dimensions and the second can be grouped as “relational-focused.” I want to be clear about this demarcation, though: it’s not true that the self-focused dimensions are divorced from or independent from the “relational-focused” ones or vice versa.
For instance, the Family and Romantic dimensions heavily influence most people’s Emotional dimensions. Similarly, most people’s Emotional dimension influences their Family and Romantic dimensions.
In another example, people’s Financial dimension may influence their Play dimension, at the same time that, for other people, the Community dimension has more influence on their Play dimension.
Ten different dimensions may seem like a lot or too many. What I’ve found is that, in the effort to make fewer dimensions, some dimensions get lumped together. For example, the Financial and Professional dimensions are often lumped together because our jobs and our money is usually so intertwined.
Keeping them separate, though, might help one be satisfied with their job separate from their satisfaction with their financial dimension. It could also help retirees or near-retirees separate how their desires to continue working (or not) relate to where they are financially.
This is thus a case where, though I’d prefer an easier-to-remember framework with 4-7 dimensions, 10 is actually more useful for us and better captures the tension of being human. Our reach exceeds our grasp.
So with that overview out of the way, let’s move into how to apply it using the Wheel of Life Worksheet.
The Wheel of Life Worksheet
The Wheel of Life Worksheet takes the 10 Dimensions and puts them in a chart so you can see how they all relate. This pic shows you what it looks like:
And you can download it here:
The intent of seeing the dimensions together is to help you:
Acknowledge and celebrate the dimensions you’re satisfied with
See and reflect on the dimensions you want to improve
Understand the relationships between the dimensions
The key thing that people often overlook is that it asks you to rank your level of satisfaction with the dimensions. Not someone else’s level of satisfaction. Not what someone else has or does.
It’s about you.
Scoring Yourself
Spend a few minutes thinking about each of the 10 Dimensions, how you define them for yourself, and what’s included in each. Then take some additional time and rate yourself on each dimension, filling in the numbered bands to indicate your score.
I suggest using the following as a gauge for numbers:
Be aware that a lot of people get stuck in 7s or 8s. Getting to 9 and 10 often requires as much energy as it took to get from 4 to 8, so people often decide to call 7 or 8 good enough and work on other areas.
Deciding to work on other areas that are easier to improve may be the right call for you. You might also yearn to move past 8 on a dimension that really matters to you.2
While it’s possible that every dimension could be a 10, it’s unlikely that they will be. It’s equally unlikely that everything will be a 1. Most of us have jagged wheels that change over time.
Instead of jumping headlong into committing to make everything a 10, I’m encouraging you to find the two or three dimensions you want to improve and focus there.
Anchor Dimensions and Instrumental Dimensions
You probably have two or three “anchor” dimensions that are core to your thriving that you either innately focus on or choose to put more time, energy, and attention towards. For instance, I know that when I center my Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual domains, I do better everywhere else.
I’m also currently less satisfied with my Physical dimension and am working to move past merely maintaining my health and getting it back to 8.
Given the interrelatedness of the dimensions, you may also need to work on one to unlock another. For instance, while you want to improve your Play dimension, you may have to work on your Physical dimension (in the case of, say, recovering from an injury that’s keeping you from doing an activity you love to do) or your Professional dimension (for instance, actually unplugging from work or allowing yourself to have hobbies that you don’t try to turn into a side hustle).
Instrumental dimensions are the dimensions you may want to improve because they’re instrumental to unlocking other dimensions. Just be very careful and honest about Professional and Financial being prioritized over all others because they’re “instrumental” to the others.
Dimension Stacking
It’s possible to do some dimension stacking: we can arrange a lot of our activities to integrate multiple dimensions of our life. This is one of those cheat codes when it comes to improving things.
Examples of dimension stacking might include:
Exercising with a friend (physical, emotional, community)
Nature (physical, spiritual, family, romantic if it’s just you and your partner)
Attending church services (spiritual, community)
Doing your best work (professional, financial, play, spiritual, community)
Improving Dimensions
Once you’ve done the first pass at the Wheel of Life, you now have a sense of where you are.
Above I suggested choosing 2-3 dimensions and I’m guessing most would think that I’d say “choose ONE dimension and push it forward.” While it is true that you might make more progress if you focus on changing a single dimension, I’ve found that many people either get wrapped around the axles about which one to choose or rebel against the whole process. One of the dimensions you’ll choose will naturally get more attention, and the interrelatedness of the dimensions means that you’ll likely need to address one or two others, anyway.
But then focus your change energy on the ONE dimension you think is going to make the biggest improvement for you. Start thinking about the gap between where you are and where you want to go.
So let’s say your physical dimension is at a 4 and that's the dimension that you've decided is the one that you want to focus on. Instead of thinking about going from 4 to 10, I suggest thinking about going from 4 to 7.
Why not go to 10?
A few reasons:
You’re likely to massively overcommit and either burn out getting to 10 or give up when you’ve “only” got to 7.
When you get to 7, you get to choose whether going to 10 is still that important to you and, if it is, you’ll have much more information about what it’s going to take to get through 8 and 9.
Your relative progress will be motivating
As I mentioned above, 7 or 8 often relates to tangible ways of having, doing, and being that many people will allow themselves to do to begin the journey.
If/when you get to 7, you’ll see the downstream effects and shift so that you don’t become a victim of your own success and tenacity.
Hear me, though: I am NOT suggesting that you settle or tamp down your dreams. It’s more that I want you to use the Wheel to help you commit to changing in areas that matter to you and allow yourself to check in and reevaluate every year or three.
But What About All The Other Dimensions You Want to Improve?
So much of our suffering comes because we won't let ourselves be and can’t sink into our own enoughness and abundance. There are parts of your Wheel of Life where you could allow yourself to be comfortable, sufficient, content, or enough.
Having worked through this process over the last 15 years with clients and members of our community, the pattern is that if you improve 2-3 dimensions at a time, other dimensions rise along with them. Again, they’re interrelated in that way.
And if you just can’t shake the idea that we should be improving all the dimensions at the same time, I have to ask the #1 annoying coaching question: how’s that working for you?
I’ll add the more specific variant of the question: which dimension(s) of life are suffering because you’re holding onto that idea?
#SorryNotSorry
Application
Ready to do your own Wheel? Here how I suggest you go about this:
Give yourself a focus block just dedicated to this process
Resource yourself well — eat a good meal, get the right level of caffeine, be in a place where you can think and feel deeply
Fill out your Wheel. Remember, it’s your level of satisfaction with the dimensions.
Pick 2-3 dimensions you want to improve.
For the dimensions and level you improve, write out what it would look like to be at that level.
Give yourself a few days to let it simmer.
Review the Wheel and your levels and decide if it’s something you want to commit to.
Use the Wheel to reevaluate your annual and quarterly goals. Yes, you’re now back into the Momentum Planning Method.
It’s your life and your wheel. Drive both. :)
In case you’re wondering, yes, I planned for this content to be in Start Finishing. It threatened to eat too much of the book and I was already over word and framework load. ;p
When I pulled the content from Start Finishing, I also scaffolded what a book around growing past 8 would be. It was one of the many casualties of COVID-19. The book is dormant, but not dead.
I love this Charlie, although maybe there's a reason that book got shelved. Is the 'what' and the 'how' the best focus here? (Thinking the 'who' and the 'how' could trump that?)
Love you and your work Charlie!