Increase Engagement and Meaning by Improving Satisfaction in Important Areas of Life
After the disruptions of the past 16 months, things are starting to return to normal. The pandemic provided people with an opportunity to evaluate what really matters to them and highlighted what may have been lacking or missing in the “old normal”. Finding or rediscovering meaning in your work and life can be attained by analyzing how you are “living your life — how you’re spending your time and how you’re using your abilities” (Knight, 2021). By strategically identifying where to enhance feelings of satisfaction in your life, you will notice increased feelings of engagement overall.
Are you looking for ways to find fulfillment and engagement in your work or personal life? This simple but impactful coaching exercise will help you identify ways to create meaning and boost your life satisfaction. This exercise “captures whether individual areas of your life are either meeting your needs and making you happy or leaving you dissatisfied and discontented” (Sutton, 2020).
Steps:
List 6-8 areas of your life that are important to you. These may include career, job, health, fitness, finance, family, friends, hobby, fun, leisure, service to others, learning/personal growth, environment, religion/spirituality, community, and others.
On a scale of 1-10 rate each life area for your current level of satisfaction (1 is totally unsatisfied and 10 is completely satisfied).
Note the differences in the ratings of these areas. Which are highest? Which are lowest? Where are the greatest imbalances in relation to the others?
Choose one area where you would like to increase your satisfaction level. Consider the following questions: What would a score of 10 in this area look like? How would upping your satisfaction in this area impact other areas of your life? What do you need to improve to make an impact on your satisfaction level in this area? What is one small thing you could do right away to make a difference in this area? Note that “small steps” can be really small! Take a short walk before work, meet a friend for a virtual or live coffee, reach out to a mentor at work, call a family member you haven’t spoken to for a while, watch a Ted Talk on a subject that interests you, offer to help a neighbor, or try out a new recipe.
Do the one small thing. Notice how you feel. Do another small thing related to the same life dimension. Continue this with regularity and reassess your satisfaction level (1-10).
When you feel satisfied in the area you have been focusing on, consider another life area where you are less than fully satisfied, and repeat steps four and five.
Increasing satisfaction in important life areas has a positive spillover effect on all areas of life. For example, people have shared that by feeling healthier they have increased motivation to connect with friends, by focusing on their professional growth their satisfaction at work increased, and by helping others their energy for their own fitness was boosted. To maximize meaning and feelings of engagement in your life, assess, set goals and take action to improve satisfaction levels in important life areas. Over time, strive to balance the satisfaction levels of all important areas in your life.
Knight, R. (2021, February 3). How to Find Meaning When Your Job Feels Meaningless. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/02/how-to-find-meaning-when-your-job-feels-meaningless.
Sutton, J. (2020, December 2). How to Apply the Wheel of Life in Coaching. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/wheel-of-life-coaching/.