How to Conduct A Life Audit – It’s easy to lose sight of our goals, aspirations, and overall well-being. One way to regain focus and take control of our lives is to conduct a life audit.
A life audit is a self-reflection exercise that helps us understand where we currently are in the various areas of our life, versus where we would ideally like to be. It’s a powerful way to take stock of our lives as a whole and allows us to clearly identify where we might be out of balance, off target or in need of making some improvements. It’s completely individual and allows us to check in with how we are currently living our lives, versus our ‘ideal’ version for our life. When we have a clearer understanding of our current situation, we can then make intentional changes that align with where we want to be.
One of the main ways a life audit can help us is by providing clarity and direction in our lives. Whether you’re in the midst of complete overwhelm, or you just want to conduct a personal development ‘check-up’, a life audit is a simple way to review the most important areas of your life and how they fit together, get clear on what your ‘ideal’ is for each important life area, identify what is and isn’t working for you, and then work out what steps you need to take to make your goals happen.
Overall, a life audit can be a valuable tool for anyone looking to make positive changes in their life. By taking the time to reflect and evaluate your life, you can gain clarity, set goals, and make intentional changes that align with your values and priorities.
A life audit can be helpful anytime you feel the need to step back, reflect on where you are, and make intentional changes. It’s important to remember that a life audit is an ongoing process, not a one-time event, and that it’s okay to revisit and update your evaluation and goals when needed.
Conducting a life audit can feel overwhelming at first, but breaking it down into manageable steps can make the process much more achievable.
The first step in conducting a life audit is to define the categories that you will use to evaluate the different areas of your life.
These categories should include the areas that are most important to you, such as health, relationships, work and finances, and the specific criteria that you will use to evaluate each of these areas.
For example, I like to use the following life areas:
Health and Wellness: evaluating your health and wellness can include assessing your physical health, mental health, diet, exercise, sleep, and self-care habits.
Friends and Family: this can include assessing the quality of your relationships with family and friends, as well as your boundaries, how well you keep in contact, celebrate and commiserate together and support each other.
Relationships: evaluating your relationships can include assessing the quality of your relationship with a romantic partner, as well as your communication skills, boundaries, support and growth.
Fun and Recreation: evaluating your fun and recreation can include assessing the activities and hobbies that bring you joy and fulfillment, as well as the time and resources you actually dedicate to them. It can also include planned adventures, travel and new experiences you want to try.
Spirituality: assessing your spirituality can include evaluating your connection to your personal beliefs, values, and purpose. It can involve exploring practices such as meditation, prayer, or mindfulness, as well as evaluating the impact of your beliefs and values on your daily life and decision-making.
Career/Business: assessing your career can include evaluating factors such as job satisfaction, salary, work-life balance, career growth opportunities, alignment with your values and passions, side hustles and/or building a new business.
Finances/Wealth: assessing your finances can include evaluating your income, expenses, savings, debt, investments, and financial goals.
Environment: evaluating your current environment can include looking at the physical spaces where you spend your time, the people and culture around you, and the impact you have on the world that you live in.
In each important life area, take some time to think about what your ‘ideal’ state would be.
- How do you want to feel?
- How do you want to live?
- What do you want to do? To have? To enjoy?
With a 10 being completely satisfied, what would be a 10 out of 10 for you in each of these life areas?
Be honest with yourself and rate your satisfaction with each area on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being completely satisfied.
As you evaluate each area of your life, you may find that some areas are working well, while others need improvement.
Review the gaps between where you want to be and where you are now. What’s working well so far? Take some time to be grateful for what is going well in your life.
Next, look for the areas that require some attention from you. What do you need to stop or start doing in order to improve this area?
Once you’ve completed the life audit, you will have gained some valuable information about what’s going on across all of your areas of life. It’s created clarity. Now we need direction as to where to go from there.
The final step in a life audit is to take action on what we’ve discovered. This may involve making changes to your habits, routines, or mindset. It may also involve seeking out new opportunities or resources to help you achieve your goals.
- Create a list of specific and manageable tasks to work on improving those areas.
- Are there goals required here, or some simple changes in habits?
- Next, establish a timeline for these tasks or goals. Whether it’s short-term goals like going to the gym more often, meditating daily, donating blood, or doing some more volunteer hours in the community, or long-term goals like a major weight loss goal or running a marathon, it’s crucial to put deadlines on our aspirations. This will help us stay accountable and track our progress more effectively.
If your life audit has led you to the realization that your health and wellness goals are not where you’d like them to be, I’d love to help. Apply for customized personal coaching, and let’s have an honest talk about where you are, where you’d like to be, and how we can get you there together. Readers who use code EM20 at checkout get 20% off all programs for life!
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