What Does Your 10/10 Life Look Like? Try the Wheel of Life
Aug 23, 2026
If you want to get clearer on what your best life looks like, define what 10/10 means to you, and start building a strategy to get there, there is one very simple tool I come back to again and again.
If you’ve never done one before, it’s essentially a quick assessment of the different areas of your life - things like your health, career, finances, relationships, family and friends, personal growth and fun - which you score based on how satisfied you are with each one today.
It sounds incredibly simple. It is.
Over the years I have found it incredibly powerful.
I use it as part of my annual reflection because it forces me to zoom out from whatever happens to be consuming my attention at that moment and look at my life as a whole.
And there’s an important second part that I think is often missed.
When you score something, you need to know what a 10/10 actually means to you.
And 10/10 does not mean perfect.
Your 10/10 financially might mean having £10 million in the bank. Someone else’s might mean being debt-free, having an emergency fund and enough money left each year for a family holiday.
Someone’s 10/10 career might be becoming CEO. Yours might be working three days a week in a job you enjoy and never taking work home.
There isn't a right answer.
The point is to work out yours.
Most of us are actually pretty good at describing what we don’t want.
“I don’t want to feel exhausted all the time.”
“I don’t want to do this job for another 20 years.”
“I don’t want to worry about money.”
But ask someone what they do want instead and it becomes surprisingly difficult.
And that matters, because if you don’t know where you’re trying to go, it’s very difficult to build a strategy to get there.
I think of it a little like being a boat without a rudder. You can be working incredibly hard, moving quickly and doing all the “right” things… while having absolutely no idea whether you are going where you actually want to go.
Let me share a few of my own examples from the Wheel of Life - health and finances - and how it has shaped my thinking, decisions and actions.
For years, my idea of improving my health was largely tied to the number on the scales. I ran. I watched my weight. I did the things I thought I was supposed to do.
But when I stopped and thought properly about what 10/10 health meant to me, weight wasn't actually the thing I cared about most.
I want to be strong. I want to be mobile as I age. I want to be able to pick up my grandchildren and hopefully my great-grandchildren one day. I want to get into my 80s and, if I’m lucky enough, my 90s with a body that still lets me do the things I love.
I’m speeding towards 40 now and I’ve definitely noticed that my body isn't quite as forgiving as it once was. Youth hides a multitude of sins!
So I did some research and changed my strategy.
For the last eight months, I’ve consistently lifted weights. I’m lifting heavier, and focusing much more on strength.
And the funny thing?
I weigh more.
If I were still measuring success using my old definition, I might conclude that I was going backwards.
But I haven't felt this good in years.
That's the power of defining the destination properly. When you get clearer about what you actually want, you can choose a strategy that gets you there - rather than continuing to chase a measure that doesn't really matter to you.
Finances are another good example.
Financial independence is a big part of my longer-term plan. Not because I want to stop working tomorrow, but because I want to reach a point where work is a choice rather than something I financially have to do.
One of my goals this year is to buy my next investment property.
With a full-on corporate job, a family, a business I’m trying to build and a property market that hasn't exactly made investing feel easy, it would be incredibly easy for that goal to quietly fall off the radar.
There is always something more immediate demanding my attention.
But when I look at the bigger picture, I know it matters. That property isn't simply another thing on my to-do list - it is part of the strategy for the life I’m trying to build.
So I’ve made it one of my priorities for the year and keep taking the steps needed to move it forward, even when progress feels slow and often uncomfortable.
That's one of the biggest benefits I've found from doing this exercise at least annually. It helps me separate what feels urgent today from what is actually important to my future.
Because without that bigger picture, it's incredibly easy to spend another year being very busy without actually moving any closer to the life you say you want.
The Wheel of Life taught me something else too: I cannot improve everything at once.
And neither can you.
When you see your whole life laid out in front of you, the temptation can be to look at every score that isn't a 9 or 10 and immediately turn it into another project.
I don't do that.
Each year, I use the assessment to decide which one or two areas deserve more of my attention over the next 12 months. Those priorities go into my personal strategic plan and influence where I spend my time, energy and money.
Some areas are allowed to stay exactly where they are for now.
That isn't failure. It's prioritisation.
And if you genuinely don't know what your 10/10 looks like yet, that's okay too. Your strategy can simply be to experiment: try things, expose yourself to new experiences, notice what gives you energy and what drains it, and use what you learn to get clearer.
You don't need all the answers before you start.
But I do think you need to stop occasionally and ask yourself:
Where am I now? Where do I actually want to go? And am I living in a way that's taking me there?
If you want to do the exercise yourself, you can download my free Wheel of Life here:
Give yourself 15 quiet minutes, score where you are today, and then spend some time defining what your 10/10 would actually look like in each area.
Don't define the life you think you should want.
Define yours.
Then choose the one or two areas that deserve your attention right now.
Elsa x
