The Sims,
I remember playing this once when I was growing up. What struck me the most about the game was how difficult it was to keep a balance in my simulated life. Fast forward to adulthood, and the game has become my reality.
If I really think about it though, it started at a very young age; when I was maybe 10 or so. Why so early? Because that’s when I started making money. I began by going to work with my dad. He had a job in a tree trimming company and would do side jobs on weekends. I would tag along to get $20 picking up the whatever pieces of brush I could carry and raking twigs/leaves. Later on in high school, I quit the football team in my junior year to keep my summer job, and most recently I spent quite a few years of my life, both going to college and working, how I’m still married is beyond me.
Several organizations teach what is called the Wheel of Life exercise. Here is how to go about it. Draw simple pie/pizza on a sheet of paper, write in 10 notches on each line. Label each line with different areas of your life. Some usual ones are, wealth, relationship, self, etc. but you would include personalized categories of what is most important to you in your life, like if art/painting is a big part of your life, you can include "creativity" etc. Next you draw in a dot on your level of satisfaction, 10 being the highest. Once you are done simply shade in the areas for each "slice" and observe the shape. Could you drive on it if it were a wheel? Do you need to re-balance your wheel of life?
This week I ran into a colleague, we always seem to end up sharing best practices and book titles etc. and he brought this up. I had done this about two years ago, but hadn’t re-done it since until today. I used the exact same categories and I am I am happy to report satisfaction growth in every category but one, with an average increase of 3. Now this is an increase in satisfaction, so either I have improved my conditions in a category, or have become become more satisfied by continuing growth in my conditions. I’m a process guy so here is what I will be doing going forward, some of it at my college’s suggestion. I will complete the wheel quarterly, and then brainstorm on how to improve each category one by one. Next, I will circle the actions that I will decide to move forward with. Here I will lean toward selecting recurring actions over one time items, because I want to continually be more balanced with what is most important to me. For example, I'll place an action item in my calendar to check in with my personal health monthly. Lastly I will color code these items by category and place in my calendar and can also use these categories when I do my weekly planning. I’m excited to see where this takes me.
I’ve been curious as to how the Sim’s players do in their life balance? I wonder how the good players would do on their own wheel of life. What I do know is that I don’t want to achieve in order to someday be happy, instead I want to happily achieve, and wish the same for you all as well. Below is an example of a wheel of life looks like, you'll find a bunch of these on google. I like this one for the exception of the career/job category
.
-LiveHappy
I remember playing this once when I was growing up. What struck me the most about the game was how difficult it was to keep a balance in my simulated life. Fast forward to adulthood, and the game has become my reality.
If I really think about it though, it started at a very young age; when I was maybe 10 or so. Why so early? Because that’s when I started making money. I began by going to work with my dad. He had a job in a tree trimming company and would do side jobs on weekends. I would tag along to get $20 picking up the whatever pieces of brush I could carry and raking twigs/leaves. Later on in high school, I quit the football team in my junior year to keep my summer job, and most recently I spent quite a few years of my life, both going to college and working, how I’m still married is beyond me.
Several organizations teach what is called the Wheel of Life exercise. Here is how to go about it. Draw simple pie/pizza on a sheet of paper, write in 10 notches on each line. Label each line with different areas of your life. Some usual ones are, wealth, relationship, self, etc. but you would include personalized categories of what is most important to you in your life, like if art/painting is a big part of your life, you can include "creativity" etc. Next you draw in a dot on your level of satisfaction, 10 being the highest. Once you are done simply shade in the areas for each "slice" and observe the shape. Could you drive on it if it were a wheel? Do you need to re-balance your wheel of life?
This week I ran into a colleague, we always seem to end up sharing best practices and book titles etc. and he brought this up. I had done this about two years ago, but hadn’t re-done it since until today. I used the exact same categories and I am I am happy to report satisfaction growth in every category but one, with an average increase of 3. Now this is an increase in satisfaction, so either I have improved my conditions in a category, or have become become more satisfied by continuing growth in my conditions. I’m a process guy so here is what I will be doing going forward, some of it at my college’s suggestion. I will complete the wheel quarterly, and then brainstorm on how to improve each category one by one. Next, I will circle the actions that I will decide to move forward with. Here I will lean toward selecting recurring actions over one time items, because I want to continually be more balanced with what is most important to me. For example, I'll place an action item in my calendar to check in with my personal health monthly. Lastly I will color code these items by category and place in my calendar and can also use these categories when I do my weekly planning. I’m excited to see where this takes me.
I’ve been curious as to how the Sim’s players do in their life balance? I wonder how the good players would do on their own wheel of life. What I do know is that I don’t want to achieve in order to someday be happy, instead I want to happily achieve, and wish the same for you all as well. Below is an example of a wheel of life looks like, you'll find a bunch of these on google. I like this one for the exception of the career/job category
.-LiveHappy
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