Level 10 life -- quantifying my life lately

The words Level 10 life quantifying my life lately over a black and white photo of a dandelion

Several years ago, Hal Elrod wrote The Miracle Morning and created a frame work for examining your life through several areas of focus and quantifying your satisfaction with those areas. The premise is that you rate these areas from 0 (the worst) to 10 (the best). For those where you aren't satisfied, you then create a plan to improve them.

The Level 10 Life concept seemed to be everywhere in the planner and life improvement spheres of YouTube, Instagram, blogs, and so on a few years ago. I still see it pop up regularly, and I have used it occasionally in my own analysis of my life satisfaction.

Since I definitely have not been thriving in any area of life for a while, I thought I'd look at my life through the Level 10 Life lens. 

Elrod's categories are:
  • Family and friends
  • Personal development
  • Spirituality
  • Finances
  • Career
  • Romance
  • Fun and recreation
  • Giving and contribution
  • Physical environment
  • Health and fitness
These categories may or may not speak to you. I'm not particularly interested in a few of them and feel like some have natural overlaps. 

For my own purposes, I will be using these categories:
  • Friends and personal relationships
  • Personal interests
  • Finances
  • Career
  • Fun 
  • Home environment
  • Physical wellness
  • Mental wellness
  • Sleep quality
Some of my categories overlap and many are interdependent. I made a few of my categories a bit broader than Elrod's and a few narrower. These are what have worked for me in the past -- I encourage you to select or create categories that work best for your own needs. 

After identifying categories, you rate your current satisfaction in each on a 0 to 10 scale -- 0 is the absolute worst and 10 is the absolute best. Elrod postulates that you can achieve a 10 in every category, and while I admire that level of ambition, I'm not sure that's sustainable. 

I separate my 0 to 10 scale into 4 subsections:
  • 0-2.5: absolutely intolerable and something needs to change immediately
  • 2.5-5: pretty awful, but tolerable in the short-term; something needs to change very soon
  • 5-7.5: decent, tolerable long-term, even if not as enjoyable as I'd like
  • 7.5-10: the golden zone; as good as it gets, comfortable, happy, stable
As long as a category is over 5, I'm ok. When things start dipping below 5, I need to get to work on improving those areas of my life right away. 

When I started working on this blog post six weeks ago, most of my categories would have been 5 and up. A lot has happened in the last several weeks though, and more than one category is in the 0-2.5 range. 

Something. Has. To. Change. 

IMMEDIATELY. 

Here's where I currently rank each of my categories:

Friends and personal relationships -- 7/10
Because of current changes to my work situation, it's been hard to see friends lately. But, I've received an outpouring of love and support recently, in the weeks before and after my dog suddenly passed away. And I've been able to carve out moments to connect with a few friends. I'd like to spend more time seeing my friends, however.

Personal interests -- 3/10
My current commute is three hours, round trip, by bus. Initially, I had planned to work on a lot of my own personal interests during the ride, but several times the environment has been too chaotic with occasionally unruly other passengers. Yesterday, the bus was stopped by fare inspectors in a way that was traumatic to experience. By the time I get home in the evening, after being on my feet and physically active for a full eight hours every day at work, I'm too physically and mentally exhausted to do much. However, I've come up with a plan to try to take advantage of this bus commute when it's not too chaotic, which I explain in THIS post.

Finances, Career -- 2/10
While I normally would have finances and career as separate categories, I'm putting them together here as I recently received a layoff notice after being promised for weeks that no one in my department was at risk of a layoff. As of August 27th, my job will no longer exist. I've had several promising interviews, but no job offers yet. It's also summer and online sales tend to be quite slow from March through mid-August. In late August, online sales on Etsy, Mercari, and other platforms typically start to pick up a bit, but they don't really take off until around Halloween.

Fun -- 3/10
I'm so tired that having fun is difficult right now. A couple of months before receiving my layoff notice, I had purchased a concert ticket for an outdoor show by the band Sleater-Kinney. It was in the evening on a Wednesday, so I had my long commute plus physically and mentally draining shift at work. I was so tired that I almost skipped the concert. I made myself go and had a great time! In a couple of months, I also have a ticket to see PJ Harvey in concert. I may not be having a lot of fun regularly right now, but there are things to look forward to.

Home environment -- 4/10
My home has slowly slid into chaos due to my current work situation and feeling completely depleted by the time I get home every day. I'm trying to force myself to spend 20 minutes every evening cleaning and tidying before going to bed. I have been keeping the living room, as well as the master bathroom, mostly tidy.

Physical wellness -- 5/10
I'm getting in an average of four to five miles of walking every day at work, but I'm not eating very well and not doing much in terms of strength training. The physical activity has greatly benefited my health in multiple ways, but the best is probably that my asthma symptoms are almost non-existent right now! 

Mental wellness -- 5/10
On top of my layoff notice and exhausting work commute and exhausting work days, my elderly dog had a massive seizure in the middle of the night and passed away at the emergency vet's office in the early morning recently. I am not sleeping well and miss my sweet girl. However, I did start to see a new therapist recently. I also know that no matter what happens with my job layoff, I'll be ok. I have options and can land on my feet one way or another. I am extremely resilient and know I'll be ok. 

Sleep quality -- 2/10
My dog always slept next to me, and it's been hard to sleep deeply and for more than a couple of hours at a time without her by my side. I'm also so worried about missing my bus in the morning that I wake up panicked, repeatedly, thinking I've slept through my alarm. 

Have you tried Level 10 Life or read Elrod's book? 

Resources mentioned in this post:

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