Putting it all together. In this last month, our Back on Track Challenge had us focusing on our own mind, body and spirit, realizing we are the CEO of this life. We delved into the why, our purpose, what we want out of life. We added some movement, we respect our body. We practiced meditations to increase our mindfulness. Now, this last week we can work on bringing these ideas altogether. Creating a Level 10 life.
What Is a Level 10 Life?
What exactly does Level 10 Life mean? It means that all areas of your life are balanced and you are living your best possible life!
The idea is from an amazing book, The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It’s basically a way to help you assess your current life situation and then set goals for yourself.
We all want to live a better life, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out exactly how to go about doing that. We might pick random goals that we think we “should” achieve, but are they goals that really matter to us? Will they really make us happier?
That’s where a Level 10 Life assessment helps! You look at different aspects of your life and decide which you need to improve and which you are OK with.
10 Areas of the Level 10 Life
The wheel of life assessment is a circle graph that is divided into 10 sections — one for each major area of focus in your life. Each section has a progress bar to fill in (from 1-10) with how satisfied you are with that area of your life.”
A quick note here – it’s kind of impossible to have 10 on all the areas all the time, so when you start thinking of a few areas you want to build up a bit and start from there.
Instead of doing 10 for all the areas try to make them all equally good.
I really love this technique because I know I can end up putting too much time and effort into just one area and totally forget about others.
When this happens, your other areas usually go down, and whether you know why or now you’ll end up not being that happy.
So this is an amazing way to remind yourself to think wider, to think about your life as a whole, not just one area.
This system tracks 10 areas of your life. Some you may not have ever thought about improving.
- Family & Friends
- Personal Development
- Spirituality
- Finances
- Career & Business
- Significant Other & Romance
- Fun & Recreation
- Contributing & Giving
- Health & Fitness
- Physical Environment
Now, these are just the areas that are suggested by Elrod. But guess what? Your life is yours! So feel free to add, omit, combine, and be creative with your categories. If you want to be more specific (romance —–> marriage or physical environment ——-> home), make those changes.
Reaching Your Level 10 Life Goals
1. Assess Your Life
Before you start making goals, you should assess your life in the 10 areas that we just talked about. So first, grab a pen and some paper (or your favorite notebook) and settle in.
This should take at least an hour. You want to be thoughtful in your assessment. If you’re not sure exactly where to start with your assessment, I’ve thought of a few questions that you can ask yourself. If you’d like even more journaling prompts that cover the majority of these categories, check out this post on self-discovery questions. These questions are about where you are RIGHT NOW.
- What are the areas in your life that you currently love?
- What about them makes you so happy?
- What areas of your life are not going well?
- What makes you feel that way about them?
- What areas of your life do you spend most of your time thinking about?
By the way, these assessments are often done during life coaching sessions. If you’re interested in life coaching or specifically self-care coaching, check out my services.
The basic idea is to give each of the areas above a score out of 10 and then see which areas are lacking and which are not.
Yep, it really is that simple.
Don’t overthink it; go with your gut instinct.
For example, maybe you’ve been telling people for years about how you want to move to a bigger house. If that’s really what you want then your physical environment score wouldn’t be super high right now.
But maybe when you go to score that area you instinctively give it a very high score, maybe an eight or nine. If that’s the case, then possibly that big house isn’t really what you want…
2. Record Your Current Life Levels
There are lots of different wants to track your progress towards your Level 10 Life. Here are a few ideas of ways to record your Life Levels:
- Write your level rankings down in a notebook
- Use Trello, OneNote, or another digital notebook to record your levels
- Write them on a whiteboard or blackboard so you see them every day
- Record it in your Bullet Journal
- Use my Level 10 Life Printable at the end of this post.
It doesn’t matter HOW you track your progress, just as long as you do it!
3. Ask Yourself Where You Want to Be
Now that you have a firm grasp on where you are right now, ask yourself where you want to be.
- What does your level 10 life look like?
- Who do you spend your time with?
- What do you spend your time doing?
- How does it all make you feel?
So you have an idea of what you’d like your life to look like and maybe even some steps to start getting there.
4. Set Your Goals
Now that you can see where you may want to improve or what is out of balance you can start setting some goals!
Make Them SMART (Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely).
Specific
This means that you want your goal to be clear and understandable. For example, “get healthier” isn’t really clear. What does “get healthier actually mean? Some questions you may ask yourself include: what do I want to accomplish? and what is involved in accomplishing it?
So instead, “Get healthier” becomes “Exercise more”
Measurable
Having your goal be measurable means that there are concrete action steps, deadlines, etc that you can point to, to show that you are on your way to (or have met) your goal.
Your specific goal of exercising more can be measured by how long you exercise, how often you exercise, how many repetitions of a particular exercise you do, etc.
Attainable
This step in the SMART goal exercise is also called Achievable. Is your goal achievable based on your capabilities (health, finances, family situation etc) AND your ability to stretch yourself?
Relevant
Think about if this goal is really relevant to you. Will this goal actually matter a few years from now? Are you trying to achieve this goal because it’s what someone else wants?
Only you know if your goal is really relevant to what you want.
Timely
Lastly, you want to set a timeframe for this goal. Some questions you may ask yourself in this step are: how often will I set aside time for this OR when do I want this goal to be achieved by?
To take our “exercise more” goal through all the steps, it may look something like this:
I’m going to work up to exercising at home 3 times a week for half an hour by February 15th, 2021.
5. Make Your Goals Happen
Now for the secret to making all this a reality! Breaking down those goals into manageable and actionable steps.
You can then add these small steps into your everyday Bullet Journal spreads such as your weekly spreads or habit trackers.
For example, if Finances is an area where you mark low and you have set a goal to save for an item, you can break this amount up into small weekly savings and add a tracker into your weekly or monthly pages. Alternatively, you could create special savings spread just for that goal.
One of our favorite tips is to work towards a reward. Think of something that will motivate you towards making this goal a reality! It could be something as small as getting your nails done to having a special meal with a loved one.
6. Review
The last step in making a Level 10 life spread work for you is to review your page. Everyone loves to review their spread at different times. We suggest every 6 months as a minimum. This way you can see if you are on track to achieving your goals and improving your life balance.
Take the time to think if you feel differently about any of the scores you have in the sections. You can add new scores if you wish to. If you do add new scores we like to make sure we mark where we were initially at so that we can see our progress. You can do this by marking with a thick line, dating sections, or any other way you wish.
Every year I set aside a day to assess where my life is and plan where I want it to be in a year’s time.
Are all the areas in your life improving? Or is there an area that has taken a back-slide? Are your priorities still the same or have they changed?
By regularly reassessing your goals and your Level 10 Life wheel, you can make sure you are staying on track!
To summarize:
- Assess Your Life
- Record Your Current Life Levels
- Ask Yourself Where You Want to Be
- Set Your Goals
- Make Your Goals Happen
- Review
Level 10 Life Goal Examples
If you’re not sure where to start out or want a few more examples of how to make SMART level 10 life goals, here are a few goals in each area.
Spiritual Goals
- Meditate daily
- Practice gratitude
- Read a passage of your religious book each day
- Focus on discovering what you feel is your purpose in life
- Pray daily
- Take 10 to 15 minutes each day to reflect upon your day
- Define what spirituality means to you
- Try to go whole days without saying anything negative
- Discover a new spirituality mentor and listen to their teachings
- Go to your religious meetings regularly
Career and/or Business Goals
- Take a course that is relevant to your career
- Work on your time management to ensure you are being efficient in your career or business
- Attend a relevant conference
- Ask your manager or superior to work on that project that really excites you
- Start a side hustle
- Start networking more with others in your industry
- Create a website that showcases your skills and experiences (great to show potential employers)
- Search and apply for a new job
- Research ways you can stand out in your chosen field
- Implement a morning routine to make you more productive for work
Finance Goals
- Save a $1,000 emergency fund
- Save a year’s worth of living expenses in your emergency fund
- Pay down credit card debt
- Create a plan to pay off your mortgage early
- Create a budget
- Make sure you are saving enough for retirement
- Pay for a holiday in cash
- Pay off your car loan
- Create a plan to pay off your student loans
- Do a living expenses audit and see where you can save more
Physical Environment Goals
- Declutter closet
- Declutter home
- Create a cleaning schedule to stick to
- Always wash the dishes after dinner
- Redecorate that room that’s looking a little tired
- Clean out the garage or basement
- Rearrange the furniture in a room that’s currently not working for you
- Create a tidying routine so stuff doesn’t end up being left out each night
- Buy a new furniture item that you need
- Sort out the garden so it’s looking neat and tidy
Health and Fitness Goals
- Go to the gym three times per week
- Try meal prepping
- Focus on making self-care a priority
- Go for a run three times per week
- Do some stretching or yoga each morning
- Try journaling for your mental health
- Try a Whole30 challenge
- See your doctor about that niggling health issue you’ve been ignoring
- Try a fitness class you’ve never been to before
- Go for a walk each day after work
Personal Development Goals
- Listen to an interesting podcast while commuting
- Do some guided meditation on something you’re working on
- Implement an evening routine
- Implement a morning routine
- Do some self-discovery journaling
- Read a new book each month
- See how long you can go without saying anything negative
- Learn about something you know nothing or very little about
- Go to a seminar or class on a topic that interests you
- Practice gratitude each day
Friends and Family Goals
- Send a nice text to someone you’re close to each day
- Call a distant family member you haven’t spoken to in a while
- Schedule dinner with close friends or family once a week
- Schedule in a weekend away with close friends or family
- Write a letter to someone
- Host a games night to spend time with your friends or family without the TV on
- Send a surprise gift in the mail
- When you next go on vacation, send postcards to your closest friends and family
- If you live with some friends or family, cover their chores for a day or two to give them a break
- Work on your listening skills
Significant Other Goals
- Tell each other one thing you appreciate about the other each day
- Go through your calendars once a week so you both know what the week looks like for the other
- Schedule a date night once per week
- Schedule a vacation for just the two of you
- Make sure household chores are distributed evenly
- Have a no mobile phone or tech day and just hang out with each other
- Start a new hobby together
- Aim to go on one new date per week if you are looking for love
- Work on your communication skills
- Don’t forget to tell each other “I love you”
Fun and Recreation Goals
- Go on that vacation you’ve been thinking about
- Plan how you are going to travel the world
- Give yourself time to work on your favorite hobby
- Join a club doing something you enjoy
- Go to a concert
- Read a novel by your favorite writer
- Host a solo dance party in your house once a week
- Make a list of all the movies you want to watch and start crossing them off the list
- Start writing the book you’ve always dreamed of writing
- Save up and spend a day at the spa
Contributing and Giving Goals
- Make a regular monthly donation to a charity you admire
- Pay it forward at a restaurant or drive-through
- Volunteer at an animal shelter
- Pay for a meal with friends
- Pay for a homeless person to stay in a hotel for a month
- Volunteer within your local community
- Invest in a local business that’s just starting up
- Donate food to a homeless shelter or animal shelter
- Share social media posts from a charity you admire to get their message further out into the world
- Adopt a rescue pet rather than buying one
What other life topics can I have in my level 10 life?
Look, this list isn’t exhaustive and you should be free to explore the ones that have meaning to you and feel positive and good to you too. This list is just a couple of things that I think would be good to think about when selecting your sections of life to work on.
- Family
- Travel
- Career
- Romance
- Fertility
- Environment
- House
- Finances
- Wellbeing
- Mental health
- Fitness
- Fun
- Recreation
- Professional Development
- Relationships
- Friends
- Pets
- Skills
- Crafts
- Hobbies
- Values
- Personal Development
Conclusion
The greatest thing about building your Level 10 Life is you get to define what your life looks like. Never settle for less than you deserve. You can be Level 10 and live life to the fullest. But first, you have to want to be Level 10. Snag your free Level 10 Life printable here.
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“In order to achieve Level 10 success in our lives, we must first develop ourselves to be a Level 10 person who is capable of attracting, creating, and sustaining the levels of success that we want, in every area of our life.” — Hal Elrod
Manifest in the Midwest
