Why You Need A Wheel Of Well-Being

If you google “how to cure burnout” or something of the ilk, it’s likely you’ll find some of the following tips:

Do yoga, workout more, have you thought about jazzercise?
Meditate, light some candles, have you considered following this guru?
Set better boundaries, guard your peace, have you gone to my masterclass?

Those bug us.

Don’t get us wrong, if those work for you, then that is fantastic. One of our mantras around here is that different people are different, and the real problem is assuming that your personal solution is a universal one.

Solutions to burnout are frequently presented as a Venn diagram of three categories: mind, body, spirit.

We think that’s shallow.

Actually, we know that’s shallow.

So, instead, we’ve created a Wheel of Well-being:

How can this help you with burnout recovery?

As you can see, we’ve included physical wellness and spiritual wellness, but we’ve expanded everything so that it also includes more aspects of what it means to be human: financial, environmental, occupational, social, intellectual, emotional. Moving it from a static Venn diagram to a dynamic wheel means that balance is a key.

If you’ve ever driven a car whose chassis is out of alignment, you know what we mean when we say that something out of balance might be functional, but it’s not great. A: it might not be functional for long, and B: it has the risk of causing longer term damage. When your Wheel of Well-being is out of whack for an elongated period of time, it’s the same situation.

Maybe you’ve put all your healing focus into your spiritual well-being. Amazing! How’s the financial? Are you spending more than you actually can on retreats, gurus, etc? Double check the balance on that wheel spoke. What about intellectual wellbeing? Are you spending all of your time in a thirst for knowledge that you’ve neglected relationships and ended up alienating people in your life because you come off as elitist and untouchable? Check in with yourself and your loved ones – that spoke may be causing misalignment.

What happens if your wheel is broken?

Just like a car alignment, your personal Wheel of Well-being can get out of whack from one giant bump in the road (we live in Pennsylvania, the international capital of potholes, so we know), or a lot of tiny bumps, or a combination of the two. It’s why we take cars to the shop for regular checkups. We rarely do the same for ourselves.

We encourage you to do that – to take yourself seriously enough to do a wellness check up. Go through the elements of the wheel and examine how you’re interacting with each of these principles.

We are positive it will make a big difference.

Want to learn more about the Wheel of Wellness and our other burnout prevention/recovery tips?

Or snag a copy of our book, The Culture of Burnout: Why Your Exhaustion is Not Your Fault – available in paperback, ebook, and audio.