How To Do A Holistic Life Audit

It’s hard to create the life of your dreams when you’re not even sure where you stand right now. That’s where a life audit comes in.

A holistic life audit helps you pause, reflect, and take stock of how happy and fulfilled you feel in every area of life. Think things like your career, health, relationships, habits, and more. It’s an intentional check-in that helps you realign with what truly matters.

When I did my first life audit, I realized how many parts of my life were just… fine. Not terrible, but not joyful either. This simple process helped me uncover what was missing and gave me a clear roadmap to start changing things.

There is a lot of reflection that goes into goal setting and dream achievement. If you’re ready to reflect on where you are and design a happier, more intentional future, here’s exactly how to do your own holistic life audit, step by step.

What is a life audit?

A life audit is when you review your current life, happiness, and fulfillment and then plan your future goals and dreams. A life audit helps you ensure you are living in alignment with your dreams. It also helps you get a real look into what is currently working for you and what is not. 

During a life audit it will become clear what your values are, what makes you happy, what makes you feel fulfilled, and ultimately what matters most to you. 

Once you’ve completed your life audit you will be able to spend time working on the things that you WANT to do and actually see results in your overall happiness. Because being happy really is the most important thing, right?

I like to use the word “holistic” because it’s not just one category of your life. You are focusing on everything!

Related reads:

• How To Plan The Perfect Life Admin Day
• How To Change Your Life With A Habit Audit

Why you need to do a life audit

There comes a point where life starts to feel a little… off. Maybe your days are packed, but you still feel unfulfilled. Or you’ve achieved things you thought you wanted, yet something’s missing. That’s usually a sign it’s time for a life audit.

Here’s why a life audit is so powerful:

• It helps you reconnect with your values: You can’t build a fulfilling life if you’re not clear on what truly matters to you right now. A life audit helps you see if your current routines, habits, and goals reflect your values or if you’ve been living on autopilot.
• It creates clarity and direction: When you understand which areas of your life feel balanced (and which don’t), you can focus your energy on the things that actually move the needle instead of spreading yourself too thin.
• It resets your motivation: Sometimes burnout or stagnation isn’t about laziness… it’s about misalignment. A holistic life audit reignites your motivation because it reconnects you with purpose and intention.
• It supports intentional growth: Life changes, and so do you! Regular life audits help you grow in a way that aligns with your season of life, not someone else’s timeline or expectations.

Steps to completing a life audit 

This process won’t be super quick. You may want to schedule a couple of hours or even do this over a few days. Some emotions might come up for you because certain areas of your life might not be as fulfilling as you thought they were. That’s okay! It happened to me. 

Just remember that everyone has to start somewhere, and this is your somewhere. 

Step 1: Reflect on your current life

To discover how you truly feel about your current life you need to take the time to think about it. Reflect on what you like and what you don’t. Where do you feel fulfilled and where do you need some work? 

During step 1 you can do the Circle of Life exercise. You may have seen this before; it’s super popular! 

You can grab any circle of life template or even draw it yourself. See below.

How the circle of life exercise works:

1- Rate how you feel about different areas of your life and then fill in the wheel accordingly.

Example: if you rate your relationships a 5/10 you will draw in until the 5. 

The goal = to show a well-balanced circle that could roll just like a car wheel does. If everything is pretty even, the wheel works! If you are a 10 in one category and a 1 in another, then your wheel is not a proper circle and is not going to roll properly.

2- Be honest! No one will have every category perfectly equal. You will probably notice you’re happier in some areas of your life than others. Don’t just answer to make a well-balanced wheel. That defeats the whole purpose of this exercise.

3- If you feel like going a step further, you can make a few notes on why each category is rated the way it is. Example: What makes you feel happier in your career than in your social life? Start to dig a bit deeper and figure out the why!

I created a FREEBIE with the circle exercise and space for notes!

Grab the Circle of Life exercise template!

GET IT NOW!

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Yay!!

The circle of life exercise is on it’s way :)

Step 2: Fill in the gaps 

I love this part. Grab your circle of life and start thinking about what you could do (or generally what needs to happen) to make each category a 10/10. 

Keep in mind this is not an actual plan. It’s just a brainstorming session on how your life COULD be better and theoretically HOW you might do it. 

Think perfect world stuff. Even if it seems too far-fetched right now that’s okay. 

Let’s look at my own example. I would rate my career life a 6/10. It’s okay. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. There are days I’d rather just stay home, but some days do feel rewarding. In a perfect world, to make my career category a 10/10, I would be working for myself from home. I would be doing something creative. There wouldn’t be set hours I have to work or even many people I have to deal with. Aka my blog!! 

In my example I shared my end goal! I know it’s not feasible right now but that would be a 10/10 for me! Notice how I was kind of vague as well? I know that my “perfect world” career is my blog. But I tried to focus on aspects of the career instead of the title itself. WHAT about the career is a 10/10? 

This step is key to a holistic life audit because it highlights what’s not aligned with your core values.

Step 3: visualize your ideal life 

It’s time to think about what you WANT your life to look and feel like. Close your eyes and visualize your ideal life.

Think of these questions:

• What does your ideal day look like?
• What does the perfect career look like?
• What lifestyle do you want to live?
• What time do you want to wake up in the morning?
• How do you want to feel every day?

Try to touch on all the categories in some way and if you get stuck, go back to the “fill in the gaps” step and see what you are missing.

The whole purpose of doing a life audit is to make your life better. Chances are you are feeling unhappy somehow. People who love their lives and think everything is great don’t tend to do life audits! 

Here’s an example of a life vision:

I am living a life that fills me up every day. My mornings are slow and relaxing. I have time to get a good workout in every day. My body is fueled by healthy foods that I have the time to cook. My job is based from my home and I can pick my own hours. I often take a break at lunch to have coffee with a friend or take a walk in nature. During work, I do a lot of creative things like writing, photography, and design. I finish the day feeling motivated and excited. There is always enough time for my favorite hobbies. I even have a great community of friends who are supportive and understand my lifestyle. 

You can get even more specific (or keep it vague). It’s YOUR vision after all. I like to write it as if it’s already happened, but write it however feels best for you. 

This exercise is here to help you identify your best self. Not all of it will be possible right now and you might not even believe it’s possible ever! But understanding where you currently are and where you want to be is a clear road map! 

Step 4: make a life improvement list 

You know that “ins and outs” trend that went around the internet? This is kind of like that!

Now that you know your vision and the gaps between current you and future you, write a list of ways you can slowly move yourself closer to the end goal.

The big question: What can you start doing TODAY to improve your life and move closer to your ideal life?

Example: Since my vision included things like daily workouts, hobbies, healthy meals, and creativity, those are things I can add to my life improvement list. 

My life improvement list might look like:

• Going on daily short walks 
• Making more home-cooked meals
• Eating more veggies 
• Engaging in a hobby a couple times a week
• Doing a creative project on the side of my full time job

These are simple things that would improve my current life and move me closer to the ideal, visualized life I want.

If you want to take this a step further, make another list: life unimprovement (is that a word? Lol it is now). Make a list of the things you currently do that are HINDERING your future success.

Things like:

• Excessive doom scrolling
• Eating unhealthy foods
• Not prioritizing things you enjoy doing
• Sleeping in too late

Once you have that list, start ditching these things from your life.

Step 5: set aligned goals 

During this life audit, you have reflected, dreamed, and taken some real action. Here’s where things really start to change. 

Using all the information you’ve gathered so far, set a few goals. Your goals should reflect what your life audit revealed about your priorities.

Some goal examples might be:

• Starting or growing a side hustle
• Learning a new skill
• Working on your health 
• Seeing a therapist
• Buying a house 
• Building up your community 

Those are vague examples, but obviously tailor them to your vision! Give yourself something to work towards, or else you will find yourself stagnant in life, which is NOT the point of this life audit.

Related reads:

• How To Make Time For Your Goals
• The Most Important Things To Include On Your Vision Board

Step 6: set intentions that support your goals

The difference between intentions and goals is kind of blurry. However, to me and many others, goals are action-based. You say you’ll do something and then you take action to achieve it. Intentions are more like a way of life. 

You might set an intention to be a kinder person. Yes, I guess that could be a goal, but the idea is you won’t stop once you are kind to someone once… It’s a lifestyle. 

So pick a couple intentions (aka way of living, thinking, and being). 

Write these down on post-it notes and display them around your house. Repeat your intentions often to remember them. 

Step 7: review and re-audit often 

Schedule time in your calendar to revise your vision, goals, and intentions. 

You may find it useful to go through the whole life audit again! I would suggest doing it once a year. See your improvement and see what areas have grown on your happiness meter. 

Nothing will ever be perfect and life has its ebbs and flows. It’s okay to feel a 10/10 one year and not another year. That’s why you review and see what is working and not working. 

It’s all part of your journey to becoming your best self. 

Final thoughts 

Doing a life audit might feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself. A holistic life audit helps you see what’s truly working (and what’s not) so you can build a life that feels aligned, intentional, and joyful.

Being happy in one area of your life is truly not good enough and not fair to you! You aren’t getting the full human experience.

Doing a life audit can be eye-opening (and maybe a little hard). It’s not always easy seeing things for how they really are when you’re living through it. It’s kind of like the saying “hindsight is 20/20.” Being in the moment can make you feel like things aren’t so bad (or like they are REALLY bad when they aren’t). 

I’m a big believer in being a better version of yourself because why not?! Be a little bit better every day. Set aligned, intentional goals and try your best to achieve your dreams. No one else is going to do it for you! I believe in you!

What do you think of a life audit? Is this something you’d do??