How to check in with yourself
Image Description: A meme of Patsy Kline a character played by Joanna Lumley in British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. She is holding a cigarette in her left hand and a bottle of vodka in her right. Above her it says, “None of this new year new you bollocks. Last year I was fabulous and next year I will be fabulous!
Like Patsy I don’t buy into this ‘new year, new you’ bollocks.
All of our life’s experiences make us who we are and YOU ARE AWESOME!
Instead I think it makes more sense to regularly check-in with yourself.
Remind yourself of what’s going well and choose where you want to focus your energy over the next few months.
It’s something I want to do more this year so I’m inviting you to join me now and then once every three months, when I’ll help you build on each check-in.
It all starts now.
Grab paper and pens and follow the steps below.
The wheel of life
1.
Draw a circle and divide it into 6-10 segments.
I’ve drawn mine in a notebook and I’m going to leave the next three pages blank to compare my check-ins over the year.
2.
Label each segment with an area of your life you want to check-in on. For example you might have:
3.
Now rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 on each segment with one being low and in the centre and ten being high and on the outside.
Here’s mine as an example:
4.
Pick 2-3 segments you want to focus on for the next three months and mark on your wheel where you want to be in that time.
Be firm yourself, it’s hard to work on more than four areas at once.
For such a simple exercise it can uncover a lot. My family segment score is very low and I had to admit to myself that I’ve not been good at keeping in touch with family in NZ. I want to improve this to a 5 over the next three months.
5.
Finally note down your answers to these prompts:
a) What do you need to keep doing to see growth in these segments?
b) What do you need to start doing?
c) What do you need to stop doing?
Set a reminder to look at your answers once a week and a set an intention for one thing you’re going to keep, start or stop doing.
I’ll check back in with you at the end of April.
