My Wheel of Life

Barb and Betsy shared earlier this week how the "wheel of life" exercise affected them. I too found the exercise to be meaningful, but in a different way. Three weeks ago we welcomed a new baby girl into our family. We also have a sixteen month old… (yikes!) Though I knew I would be busy, I had no idea HOW busy I would be. I feel like I am changing a record amount of diapers and although our family has only increased by 1… I think our laundry has quadrupled in size. I tend to be a person who likes my house neat, and with a newborn, I had forgotten that there are some things that I just need to let go.

With these things in mind, when the author challenged me to fill out the wheel of life, I thought it was going to reveal how unbalanced my life is right now. I honestly don't have a lot of time for self-care, dates with my husband, or coffee with girlfriends. Although we try to wish these things into our schedule as much as we can...right now we are pretty consumed with having two babies. (I don't know how all of you mothers of 3, 4, and 5 do it! My hat is off to you!) I was hesitant to do this exercise because I didn't want to feel guilty over how unbalanced my life seems right now. HOWEVER, I loved that instead of having us try to record how much time we have for all areas in our life, she had us think about our satisfaction levels. Because although I would love to have more time to sleep or converse with my girlfriends over lunch, I realized that I am incredibly satisfied in this stage of my life even though my wheel would look off-balanced. I am getting to do what I always wanted to do... raise children with a loving husband. Are there sacrifices I am making to stay at home with my kids? Yes, absolutely… but when I evaluate my level of satisfaction, it is so worth it; SO very worth it.

Regardless of your stage in life, I would challenge you to also think about your level of satisfaction in these areas. Like me, you may realize that even though some areas of your life are consuming most of your time... you really wouldn't want it any other way.