The bumpy ride of life

Here's an exercise which I shared with a delegate at one of my Selling for Engineers seminars. He was profoundly struck by it. I have known the concept for some years, but the original impact had worn off, I was no longer seeing it with fresh eyes - writing it up has been a useful reminder for me. I hope you find value in it too.

It goes like this:

Make a list of the major aspects of your life which are important to you

They might include:

• Health

• Family

• Home

• Faith

• Work

• Friends

• Money

• Achievements

That's a list that comes to mind for me, yours might be different.

Now make a diagram, like a wheel with a spoke for each of these topics.

Next consider on a scale of one to ten how well your life in each of these area matches how you would like it to be. (I'll use my own values - pitiable though they are.)

Mentally divide each spoke into 10 increments and mark a dot for the score for each topic. With my own numbers this would give:

Finally erase the circle perimeter and join up all the dots you have made. This is what it looks like now for me:

If this were a wheel, you'd have a bumpy ride. the life in question (mine, in this example) is far from what I would like it to be. But now it's clear where the problems lie.

To change life to be more how you desire, put effort into improving those areas with the "short spokes".

AND - please never employ the excuse, "I haven't got time". Billionaire or pauper, no one has more or less than 24 hours every day. It's what you do with your time which determines your outcome.

Before you start to argue with me - yes, luck does play a role, but there is a long list of people who have survived awful events and gone on to achieve great things - a certain N. Mandela for one among many.