I used to have a cheesy sign hanging up in my college dorm room. It said: “Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.” SO very 2010s of me, but the phrase is actually so true.
Creating ourselves (our job, our fashion sense, our friends, our hobbies, our homes, how we show up in the world) has never been more accessible. For example, if you’re reading this, you probably have a phone or a computer, which means the world is literally at your fingertips.
I realize, with that accessibility, there is also more pressure. I used to fall into the trap of feeling like I had to create a perfect, abundant, and successful life – because look at all of the resources we have!! It’s like there is no option but to succeed. We have 24/7 access to the internet, to answers, to creature comforts, and the list goes on.
But creating a life you love shouldn’t feel like pressure, it should feel like a privilege, because it is. If you find yourself unhappy or wanting more, then that isn’t a sign of being ungrateful; it’s a sign that something in your life might need changing. And how lucky are we that we have the power to make those changes.
Enter: The Life Audit
I created my first life audit back in 2022 and genuinely, it helped highlight the very specific areas of my life that needed a change. Now, I look at my life audit once or twice a year just to check on things, even when I’m feeling really happy. For you, dear reader, I’ve created a step by step user-friendly guide on how to create your very own life audit.
The Life Audit: A Step by Step Guide
Before you begin, know that the life audit is a highly personal type of journaling. No one needs to see it except for you, so don’t be afraid to let it get messy or disorganized <3
Decide your why.
Creating a life audit is no small task. It’s literally a deep dive into your whole LIFE. You’ll have to be (sometimes brutally) honest with yourself about things you’re unhappy with, or not loving. And that’s okay! Even if you can’t change them right away.
Because it can get discouraging, you’ll want to create your WHY.
Side note: As an educator, I am not actually a huge fan of the phrase ‘remember your why.’ It’ drives me nuts but is a great phrase when it comes to self improvement.
Your why for your life audit is all about you! Remember you are doing this as an act of self love and as a way to improve your life! If you’re looking for a more specific reason, a few examples could be:
- Realign yourself with your core values. It’s easy to get caught up in life, but an audit can help you to remember who you are and to be true to yourself.
- Hone in and focus on the smaller, intentional changes that you can make to literally change your life.
- Reduce overwhelm. If you’re in the midst of a major life change or life event, an audit can produce some clarity.
- Simply improve yourself. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be better! Or wanting a better life!
So, create your WHY! Write it on a piece of notebook paper or on your notes app on your phone. You could even make it into a cute quote and make it your phone screen or add it to a vision board; as long as it is somewhere you can easily reference.
Create your categories.
Next, you’ll want to create categories or areas of your life that need auditing. You don’t have to include everything, especially if there is an area you’re 100% happy with. But, I like including as much as I can think of, because those 100% happy categories boost your overall “audit score.” And that feels good!
A few areas you can pull from to include are:
- Physical health
- Mental health
- Relationships
- Career
- Home
- Financial
- Hobbies
- Free time
- Faith or Spiritual
- Routines
You can create any category you’d like, based on your lifestyle.
Not a requirement by any means, but you can list them in order of importance as well. For me, health (both mental and physical) and relationships are the absolute most important parts of my life audit. These are pillars that I need to be strong so that I can thrive in other areas of my life.
Pay special attention to the categories that mean the most to you.
Break down each category.
Breaking down each category of your audit is going to be part 1 of the bulk of the work here.
We cannot simply rate our physical health and then move on. You’ll want to pick different areas of your physical health that need assessment like sleep, weight, diet, physical appearance, activity level, etc.
These will also be highly personalized, so take your time thinking about the entire scope of each category. I have an example of my breakdown for the “home” category:
Home
- Cleanliness
- Decor
- Neighborhood
- Weather
Breaking down your categories makes it easier to pinpoint the areas you actually might love or NOT LOVE. And then those issues can be addressed!
It’s important to note here that you might have specific parts of each category that you cannot control, the weather, for example. It’s still okay to include those – we’re painting a realistic picture of our lives here.
Set aside time and assess each category.
And now we’ve reached part 2 of the bulk of the work. This will probably take the most time and also be the most highly personalized.
Since the audit is for your eyes only, you can type out whatever you like for each breakdown point. Add a sentence or two on how you feel about each point. For example, under the “home” category, next to cleanliness, one might write something like:
“The home is new and easy to keep clean because it’s very small. I love how it feels once it is cleaned. There is a lot of clutter though. Sometimes it feels messy, but not dirty.”
After your written assessment, I also recommend a score out of 10. Maybe for the above example, we would rate the cleanliness at a 7/10.
And that’s it. Do this for each of your breakdowns of each category. And don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself. No one else is going to see your audit. It’s solely for YOU.
Add up your scores and highlight issues.
Once you’ve completed your audit, you can add up your scores for each category to get an overall score for the category. Quick example using that same home category:
Home
- Cleanliness – 7/10
- Decor – 4/10
- Neighborhood – 10/10
- Weather – 9/10
7+4+10+9 = 30; then divide that total by the number of categories: 30 divided by 4 equals a 7.5.
So for home, the overall score is a 7.5. Do this for each category. Depending on your scale, I’d take a close close look at any category that falls below a 7. Within those categories, highlight any of the categories that might be dragging the average down, so anything below a 7.
Take inspired action.
So now you have completed your life audit! The next step is to take inspired action based on your audit. Using the categories you’ve highlighted, you’ll want to develop an action plan that is as realistic and specific as possible.
I like to add a bonus section at the bottom of my life audit titled “Action Plan based on Audit.”
Then I’ll list the areas I believe I can focus on improving. Sticking with the “home” example, the lowest score there is the decor, which was scored at a 4. So an action plan might be to start a Pinterest board for home decor and spend 10-15 minutes a day curating that board. And over the next 4 weeks, a goal would be to remove 1 or 2 pieces of furniture or photos that didn’t spark joy and replace them with something beautiful.
This is obviously a more simple category to fix. But for subsections of mental health, it might take some more time, but try to think about actionable things you can do, rather than theoretical things.
Where to keep your life audit.
You can make a life audit digital or handwritten. I keep a digital version on a Google document just because it’s the most user-friendly for me. If you are a fancy digital person, you could even create a cutesy version using Canva.
The plus side to a digital version is you can easily go back and revise it every time you want to do an audit without having to start from scratch.
But I know some people love putting pen to paper. Keeping the audit in a journal or a physical folder can be a super great way to romanticize doing your audit. Writing long hand forces you to slow down and take your time.
How often to do a life audit.
You can complete your life audit as often as you’d like. The hardest part is creating it the first time. Once you have that, you can quickly go through it every week if you’d like. But I recommend after completing it once, to revise it each time you feel an itch to improve some aspect of yourself or your life.
…
I hope you have gained some clarity on where to begin if you’re trying a life audit. Major kudos to you for taking the time for yourself to work on your life <3 Best of luck and sending all the good vibes!!
