Introducing the Total Wealth Wheel — free to use
You can have a healthy bank balance and no time to enjoy it. A successful career and relationships that rarely get your attention. A carefully planned retirement and little idea what you want to retire into.
We recognise these situations. Yet when we talk about wealth, we so often return to the money.
At the Academy of Life Planning, we begin with a wider question:
What would it mean to be wealthy across your whole life?
Today, we’re launching the Total Wealth Wheel, a free tool to help you explore that question. See your whole life in one picture, notice what matters, and decide where to start.
Eight areas. One connected life.
The Total Wealth Wheel brings together eight areas of life in a natural cycle.
Spirit, Heart, Body and Mind sit at the four points of the year: winter, spring, summer and autumn. Between them sit the areas where each pair meets:
- Love, between Spirit and Heart.
- Contribution, between Heart and Body.
- Finances, between Body and Mind.
- Work, between Mind and Spirit.
The arrangement invites you to consider how these areas support one another.
Work can give expression to your abilities and sense of purpose. Relationships can sustain you through uncertainty. Your health affects your energy to earn, learn, care and contribute. Money can create room for those things—or the pursuit of it can crowd them out.
An account balance cannot show you all of that. A picture of your whole life can help you begin to see it.
Where are you now—and what would be enough?
Using the wheel starts with two reflections.
First, score how each area feels to you now. Then choose where you would like it to be.
As you do, your wheel takes shape. You can see areas of strength, gaps that deserve attention and priorities you may have neglected.
The aim is not a perfect ten in every area.
That would turn reflection into another performance target. You might already feel content in an area that someone else would want to change. You might deliberately give more attention to one part of life during a demanding season.
The useful question is: What would be enough for me?
Your answers belong to you. The wheel gives you a way to consider them together.
An uneven wheel is useful information
Most wheels will be uneven.
Perhaps work is going well, but your body is asking for rest. Perhaps your finances feel stretched, while your relationships and sense of purpose are strong. Perhaps you have reached the financial position you once wanted, but now need something meaningful to do with the freedom.
An uneven wheel gives you something to explore. It is not a verdict on your life.
It can also reveal resources you already have. A supportive relationship, a skill you enjoy using or a community where you feel valued may help you take the next step.
Before asking what needs fixing, notice what is already helping you live well.
Money has a place in the picture
Financial planning often begins by asking what you own, what you earn and what you need to accumulate.
Those questions matter. But their answers become more useful when you know the life they are meant to support.
You might need more income. You might need fewer commitments. You might want to invest in your health, change your work, spend time with someone you love or contribute to a cause.
Some changes cost money. Others need time, courage, a conversation or permission to stop doing something.
Money is one part of total wealth. Its role is to support the rest.
From a picture to a first step
Once you have explored your wheel, choose one or two areas to focus on.
Then identify a small first step: arrange the conversation, make time for the walk, look into the course, review the household spending or reconnect with someone important.
You do not need to redesign your entire life in one sitting.
The wheel creates a clear, personal starting point for your GAME Plan. You choose the priority and the action. The tool helps you see the starting point.
That is central to the Academy’s mission: helping people understand, choose and act with greater independence.
A longstanding idea, now a free tool
Rooted in Shinto philosophy and the cycle of the seasons, the Total Wealth Wheel was first set out in my 2019 book, Your Money or Your Life: Unmask the highway robbers – enjoy wealth in every area of your life.
This free app makes the approach easier to explore for yourself. You can use it individually, as a starting point for a conversation with your partner or family, or alongside a life planner or financial planner.
Each person’s picture will be different. That is part of its value.
Try the Total Wealth Wheel for free
Take a little time to see where you are, consider what enough would look like and choose where to begin.
Use the free Total Wealth Wheel.
Your life is bigger than your balance sheet. Your plan should be too.
