Pillar #4 – Evaluate Your Current Reality

Welcome back to Life Compass, where I’m sharing my Ten Pillars of Lifestyle Design. So far, we’ve covered:

• Pillar #1 – Start Your Master Dream List.
• Pillar #2 – Envision Your Preferred Future.
• Pillar #3 – Clarify Your Life Purpose.

Today I’ll share Pillar #4 – Evaluate Your Current Reality.

Our lives are made up of seven basic categories, or Life Areas. They are:

1. Family
2. Career
3. Financial
4. Social
5. Health
6. Personal Development
7. Spiritual/Ethical

Many times, when we want to change one aspect of our life, like our income, or our career, we tend to focus so much on that particular life area that we tend to neglect others.

Sadly, the media and our culture often endorse this approach. We celebrate singular success: people who achieve greatness as athletes, writers, business leaders, etc. We don’t often celebrate those who live well-balanced lives and are winners on the field and in the back yard, or in the office boardroom and at home in the living room.

I believe that successful Lifestyle Design is holistic, it impact all areas of life. Think of your life as a wheel…you want it to be well-rounded. You don’t want success in one area to cause weakness in another. It might be OK for a little while, but not for long.

In this step, we’re going to take the time to evaluate how you’re doing in each of the Seven Life areas.  Grab seven sheets of paper, or your computer, and put the name of one Life Area at the top of each sheet.  Ask yourself:

• What things should be important to me in this life area?
• How important are they currently? How are my relationships with others?
• What is going well?
• What needs attention?
• What are your strengths in each area?
• What are your opportunities for growth (formerly called “weaknesses”)

That’s Pillar #4 – Evaluate Your Current Reality.  Keep your Life Area sheets handy, because you’ll need them when we cover Pillar #5 – Reveal Your Personal Values.