How to use the Wheel of Fortune

1 · What the eight bearings are 

Eight parts of a life, the same eight as the points on the star. Score each one as it is tonight — not how it was last year, not how you hope it will be. A 10 means "this part of my life is as good as I could want it." A 1 means "this part is barely there." Most people land between 3 and 8 on most spokes; that is normal.

Health & energy — body, sleep, energy to do the day. Money & finances — enough, and enough peace about it. Work & career — paid or unpaid; what you do with your days. Family & friends — the people who have you, and whom you have.

Money & finances — enough, and enough peace about it.

Work & career — paid or unpaid; what you do with your days.

Family & friends — the people who have you, and whom you have.

Partner & romance — the relationship you have, or the one you want, or the peace of neither.

Fun & recreation — play. Things done for no reason but that you like them.

Personal growth — learning, reflection, becoming.

Home & environment — the place you live, and how it feels to be in it.

2 · Scoring

Click a ring inside a spoke: the innermost ring is 1, the gold ring at the edge is 10. The colour fills out to the ring you chose. Click the same ring again to clear it. Score quickly — the first number that comes is usually the true one. When all eight are in, the panel beside the wheel names where the wheel is heaviest and where it's already turning. Read the shape, not the average. A wheel that is round at 5 rolls more smoothly than one that is 9 in three places and 2 in one. The dip is the place to look, not a fault to fix tonight.

3 · The two questions

Below the wheel, pick a bearing (it starts on your lowest) and answer two questions for it. The pills are colour-coded to the spokes, and a gold dot appears on any bearing you've written for. 

What here has turned without you? The half the wheel decided: a diagnosis, a redundancy, a person who arrived or left, a year that went the way it went. Name it. Don't argue with it and don't apologise for it. 

What here is yours to turn? The action steps you can take on your path — the middle path between accepting who you are right now and wanting to change for the better. One step, small enough to start this week. Not a plan; a step. You can answer for one bearing or all eight. One done well is worth more than eight done fast.

4 · Turns — using the wheel more than once

Each time you sit down with the wheel is a turn. Your first turn is saved with today's date; give it a name if you like ("Before Session 1", "New year"). When you come back — in a month, or in three — press + New turn. It copies your last scores so you only change what has changed, and it draws your previous turn as a dotted outline behind the new one, with ▲ and ▼ beside each bearing that moved. That is the point of the wheel: not the picture, but the difference between two pictures. If you are working with Lori, the wheel is read three times across Find Your Bearings: before Session 1, in month two, and in month three.

5 · Saving, printing, sending

Everything is saved automatically in your browser on your device — nothing is sent anywhere. That also means it lives only there: a different phone or a cleared browser starts fresh. Print / save as PDF keeps a copy of a turn. Email a copy to Lori opens your own email app with the turn written out; nothing goes until you press Send. Clear everything on this device does what it says and cannot be undone.

6 · What this wheel is, and isn't

The Wheel of Life is a decades-old coaching tool. This version is read through the tarot's Wheel of Fortune — secularly, as a picture of an idea: the wheel turns whether or not we push it, and about half of what's on it is ours to turn. No prediction is made and none is possible. It is not a test, an assessment of you as a person, or a substitute for care. Coaching is for personal growth; it is not therapy, counseling or mental-health treatment, and it is not a crisis service. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.