Track your wheel scores over time to see trajectory, not just snapshots

A single wheel is a photograph; repeated wheels are a film — trajectory matters more than today’s score.

Why it works

A single assessment provides a snapshot but no information about direction. A rising 5 is fundamentally different from a falling 7 in terms of trajectory, momentum, and appropriate intervention. Tracking over time also builds honest accountability: if a domain has been rated low across multiple assessments, the diagnosis shifts from "I need to change something" to "I have known about this and not changed it — what is the real obstacle?"

How to do it

1. Date every wheel assessment and store them in the same place.
2. At each new assessment, compare directly to the previous one and note what moved and what did not.
3. For domains with no movement over two or more assessments, apply the gap analysis before planning another change.
4. Celebrate genuine upward trajectory, not just high scores — movement is the evidence of real change.

Evidence

Longitudinal self-assessment and progress monitoring are associated with better goal maintenance and more accurate self-knowledge over time. (mechanistic)

Self-report satisfaction scores are subject to fluctuation based on recency and current mood; a trend over four or more assessments is more reliable than any single reading.

Common mistake

Treating each wheel assessment as independent rather than part of a trend, which loses the trajectory information that identifies patterns of stagnation.