Change can be risky, can you hedge that risk?

Having spent most of my life in corporate treasury, I think I can safely say that I know a fair bit about financial risk.

With finance its all about risk and return, the higher the risk, the higher the potential return but also the higher the potential to lose.

Thinking about change is no difference. We need to assess the impact of change in all areas of our lives in order to consider the risk of making that change. In coaching one of the useful tools we can use is called the wheel of life. (example below)

The categories on the wheel are those that are most important to us and can be related to any part of our life, for example emotions, values, even elements of a goal.

Once the categories have been determined, then each one is scored based upon where we are, how satisfied or how we feel about that category from 10 to 1 with 10 being high scoring, eg, if we are flying high with career and development then this would be a high score, but if our career and development is not where we need it to be it would be a lower score.

Each category is graded accordingly plotting on the wheel for each category, to see where we need to do more work. Ultimately we are looking for balance in all the important areas of our lives.

If we score an 8 in career & development and finances, but a 3 in friends and family then the question arises are we sacrificing or risking our friends and family for a high return on our career and do we need to do something about that?

If we are making a change in our life, what is the risk of making that change and is there anything we can do to tweak that change in order to hedge it ?

How do your life choices stack up - is there any area you need to address to rebalance your life?