Episode 232: The Wheel of Life: A Simple Tool for Better Parenting
What is The Wheel of Life?
This is one of my favorite teachings, and one of the earliest that I feel is unique to me.
Imagine that life is a wheel that is constantly turning. At times when life is easy, and everything is great and going your way, you’re on the top of the wheel. At times when life is hard, nothing’s going your way, and maybe you’re really struggling with your teen, you’re on the bottom of the wheel, basically being run over and under the weight and pressure of the wheel of life. It’s uncomfortable being on the bottom of the wheel.
Some key principles that you want to keep in mind is that the wheel is constantly turning. This is powerful, especially for teens. Often, people, especially teens, think that when they’re on the top of the wheel it’s because they’re awesome or special. Then, when they’re on the bottom of the wheel, they think that it’s because they’re broken or something is wrong with them.
When you realize that the wheel is always turning, and that sometimes you’re on the top of the wheel, and sometimes you’re on the bottom of the wheel, and it has nothing to do with you, it’s liberating. It helps you even out your emotional reaction to life and live with intention whether you’re on top of the wheel or getting run over by the wheel.
How to Use the Wheel of Life in YOUR Life
Now that you understand the concept of the Wheel of Life, I want to teach you how to use this tool in your life. This is one of the parenting tools that will help you reset your parenting thermostat.
In fact, if you use this tool along with the Parenting Debrief tool that I taught you last week, you’ll uplevel your parenting really fast.
I teach this concept to my football players every year. Together we identify practice, especially some of the easier more boring drills as the top of the wheel. When we’re running plays on air, it’s easy, there’s no one their trying to stop us, and we should be able to execute without any interference. The bottom of the wheel is when we’re playing in a game and we’re going against someone who’s bigger, faster, stronger, and more skilled than us.
Top of the wheel moments are the time to prepare for the bottom of the wheel, and bottom of the wheel moments are times when we lean on our previous top of the wheel training.
So, how do you use The Wheel of Life in your parenting?
- Step 1) Start identifying Top of the Wheel Moments with your teen.
- I had one of these just the other day. I had asked my son to help me clean up the kitchen, and to my surprise he said, “Okay!”, and together we went to work in the kitchen. I realized, “Hey, this is a top of the wheel moment. We’re not arguing, we’re not annoyed with each other, and this is great.”
- So, during that moment, I intentionally practiced BEING The Parent of My Dreams.
- Step 2) Practice BEING The Parent of Your Dreams During Top of the Wheel Moments.
- It’s easier to practice and get quality reps when you’re on the top of the wheel.
- When you’re looking for top of the wheel moments, you’ll realize that you have more of them than you might have realized, which means more opportunities to practice BEING the parent of your dreams.
- Step 3) During Bottom of the Wheel Moments, lean on your top of the wheel training.
- If you’re anything like me, this in and of itself might take some practice. Often, during bottom of the wheel moments, you’ll revert back to your old programming without even realizing it. That’s okay. The Parenting Debrief can help you with that.
- As you get more Top of the Wheel reps, you’ll start naturally BEING the parent of your dreams that you’ve been practicing in top of wheel moments.
Be the Parent of Your Dreams!
If you want to be the parent of your dreams, you’ve got to reprogramme your old programming or reset your parenting thermostat.
The wheel of life is a tool to help you reprogramme your old parenting programming and reset your parenting thermostat.
Using the wheel of life and the daily parenting debrief will help you reset your parenting thermostat super fast.
If you’re tired of being the parent who always yells and screams at your teen, identify “What kind of parent do you want to be?” and start developing that programming.