Time for A Life Audit? * Spotlight My Health

“My Happy Life” Audit

What is a life audit and when is it time for a life audit? It’s different for everyone, but basically it is a full and complete assessment of different areas of your life. For instance, family life, relationships, your productivity, and what’s taking up your time and energy. Or what is taking a lot of mental and emotional energy.

How is your financial situation or is your job satisfying? What about your skills and do you get along with your co-workers? What’s the environment like at work and at home?

The object of the assessment is to give you a clear picture of your life. You want to determine what’s going well, and what isn’t. Is your life where you expected it to be, where are you heading and is it the direction you expected.

And the time to do one is whenever you feel the need to get your life in order again.

Time for A Life Audit?

Seldom in life do we stop to smell the roses, as they say. And just so, we seldom stop to do an audit of our lives so that we can ascertain if we are heading to a place that we can feel good about ourselves and will help us be happy.

Many times, we put lots of time, energy, and effort into living our lives, but why do we work this hard and still not feel happy? Instead, we just continue on the road that feels familiar to us and seems to be working according to society and/or our families.

Still there seems to be that small, bothersome question mark at the back of our minds. Is this it? Is this the best I’ll ever feel about my life? Or maybe you feel like everything is falling apart. And we don’t know how to fix it so that question mark floats away over time.

Eventually we find the questions popping up again. We find ourselves thinking: my life seems to have no direction, or I feel lost, or nothing is about me. We know something must change, but what? What would help me feel happier?

What Happens In Our Lives

Somewhere along our path, have decided to do what we think society expects rather than what our true self wants and needs to be happy. We may do this without realizing it.

We turn to more traditional accomplishments and lifestyle because we think that is what we should do. Or that is what we see those around us doing.

However, it may not be a job that we love or makes us happy to go into work each weekday.

We also collect friends to go through life with even though some of these so-called friends (or even family members) may be more toxic to us than being good for us.

Why A Life Audit

These are things that may not align with our true selves. And that’s where the problems develop and why a life audit would be an exceptionally good thing to do. Throughout our lives, priorities change, people change, and situations change. Our core values change. A life audit would help bring those changes to light and how those changes may make you feel.

Doing a “My Happy Life” audit could help determine changes that need to be made to help with anxiety you have or depression or other health challenges.

When Should A Life Audit Be Done?

There are various times in our life that we need to be smart and step back and take a good look at our lives. We need to determine where we are, if we are happy and where we want to be next year or a number of years from right now.

I would suggest those times would be upon graduation, at 30ish, upon becoming an empty nester and right around retirement, at the very least. Of course, these are just observations, as a life audit can and should be done anytime your life feels out of control or you just don’t feel happy with things as they are.

If you are someone that really likes to know where things are heading or are a planner, you could do a life audit each year.

Fall Might Be A Good Time

I would suggest sometime in September or October. This would allow you plenty of time to think about the questions on the audit. And you should have your life audit completed before the holiday season, which basically starts to consume us in November.

September or October allows time to do your audit by reflecting on the year you just went through, set new goals and be ready for the upcoming new year. By January, you’ll be ready to start working on your new goals.

A Life Audit Can Be A Powerful Tool

Doing a life audit can point you in the right direction again and help you get back to focusing on what and where you really want to go. It can help provide balance and after determining what needs to be done and where you want to go, you can make much better-informed decisions about your life.

A life audit can be a powerful tool to reevaluate your life situation and give you some direction. And when the life audit is done in a logical way, you can quickly get your life back on the path that you want. No one else’s idea of your path—but your idea of your path. You’ll know what you want and with whom and where you want to be.

Possible Questions In A Life Audit

An audit of our lives can answer questions such as:

*What areas of your life do you need to give attention to?

*What aspects of your life are you wasting too much time and energy on?

*Are you where you thought you would be at this point in your life?

*At this moment in time, are you happy with your life?

*Do you know where you want to be in the next three years and with whom? How about in 5 years, or in 10 years?

Good Reasons To Do A Life Audit?

*It can open our eyes and show us what we are struggling with (our weaknesses) and what we are doing really well.

*We all have good days and bad days, but a life audit can help create more good days compared to the bad ones.

*Helps you to access what is going on in your life.

*Determine what areas of your life you are spending your time and effort on, and if any of these areas are making you happier.

*A life audit gives us clarity on where we are and where we want to go.

*Helps determine what areas of our lives are actually the most important to us and makes us the happiest.

*Can help identify and determine what in our lives might need to be changed.

Life Audit Categories

A life audit would take a hard look at five to eight different areas of our lives. These are the categories you should stop and take a good look at when your life starts to feel “not so great”. It’s time to determine what aspects of your life you like and those areas that may need changes.

Each category should include what your life looks like, your challenges and accomplishments and how this current version of your life makes you feel.

You are not contemplating the past, but rather, right now, at the moment in time you are working on a life audit. And that’s because it’s right now that you have this little inkling in the back of your head that something isn’t quite right, or you are not as happy as you could be.

Current And Need To Do

Also included should be a list of things you are currently doing that helps you get to and/or live the life you want or getting you closer to your authentic self. (try to be positive in your writing as this will help)

Then come up with the steps that you can do or change, that would get you closer to your ideal, authentic life.

Go back over these categories and give each a number between 1 and 10 for how important each is to you, with 10 being of highest importance. This will tell you how satisfied you are with each category.

This is your barometer to let you know what areas of your life you need to put your time and energy into in order to be happier.

Prioritize Your Goals

Then it’s time to put your goals and intentions in some kind of working order. Do this in accordance with how much time you have and the level of happiness you assigned to any particular goal.

This puts your focus on those intentions and issues that will make you most happy. Next, work on some of your smaller goals to completion so that you can experience some gratification.

And remember all through this process, there is no right or wrong. It’s OK to be happy with your progress before meeting your goal.

You’re working toward meeting the goals you set. Nothing wrong with being happy with progress; this is what helps us stay motivated to keep going.

Doing a life audit may take you several days because you have to spend some down time contemplating and reflecting on each category so that you can fill out the “My Happy Life” Audit Workbook”.

Is the time this will take worth it? You betcha! You’ll be surprised at how much better you will feel.

Life Audit Steps

The question prompts included in this workbook are intended to get you thinking on the category section you are working on. You can answer all the questions or pick and answer those questions that hit you as needing answered. Or go with what yu already know about your life.

This is your life audit, do what is best for you. Answering the tough questions in the audit honestly, will help you clarify exactly where you have work to do.

1. Quick Assessment

Numbering each of the categories from 1-10 shows how happy you are with each aspect of your life. One would be least happy, while 10 would be really happy. The lower numbered categories will give you an idea of areas that you are least happy with and would want to work on.

2. Figure Out Your Weaknesses and Reflect On What You Want

You want to write down your weaknesses and definitely those things or people that do not help with your happiness. This will help you determine changes that are needed.

3. Review and Reflect What Would Make Your Best Life

You want to determine how you are presently doing toward making yourself happy. What is currently working and contributing to making you happy and what is not. Also include people that contribute to your happiness.

In each category, write down what it would take to have your best life in that category. Go big, dream big, don’t let anything hold you back. Doesn’t matter what it is—this is just for you.

List and describe the things that you are doing now to create the life you want. Those things you do on a regular basis that contribute to your soul being happy.

Even though things may seem out of whack right now, you should still be doing a few things that make you happy. Remember self-care is good for you. That’s what you put in this section.

4. Brainstorm Goals and Intentions

Come up with goals and accomplishments that you want to work toward that will align with your life values. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go such as vacations or maybe you need a new car or sofa?

Is there a certain amount of money you would like to save and have in your bank account that would give you peace of mind?

Maybe there is something you would really like to do with your partner or your children. Write it down. This is kinda like a bucket list to make you feel good about your life and where it could go.

5. Prioritize Your Goals

Choose goals that make you excited and therefore will motivate you to move forward. Base these intentions on how much time you have to contribute to changing things and the level of happiness and well-being your goals could bring you.

For instance—do you need to cut out some or all of your social media time. Do you need to start sidestepping away from those friends and/or family that are toxic to you?

I can get caught up in the news and politics pretty heavily. So, when I see it is taking more time than I want and certainly making me angry, disappointed, etc., I know it’s time to cut myself off. I stop watching and/or listening to any type of news programs or spending time on Facebook.

7. Take Action

Choose only 2 or 3 goals to work on at the beginning of your game plan so that you don’t become overwhelmed and stop.

And to feel like you are accomplishing something, take care of some of the goals that will take the least amount of time to accomplish.

The point is to get started. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself and get you feeling good about yourself. Don’t put your goals and game plan on the side lines. They are important. You are important.

Remember that you can take better care of those around you once you have taken care of yourself. A life audit falls into taking care of yourself.

Final Thoughts

Only you have the power to get started on the life you want.

Keep this workbook handy to review when your motivation starts to go by the wayside.

I know life can get in the way because it does for me too, at times. That’s when I have to sit down, take a deep breath and pull out my gameplan to remind myself what I’m working toward.