Life priorities: six areas
Six cards for six areas of life, to see the tilt and pick one area for the coming month.
The technique below lives inside Self-Work Navigator on our platform – open it and the steps walk you through automatically.
Open Self-Work NavigatorAbout this technique
Life priorities: six areas is a 25-minute self-reflection technique with metaphorical associative cards (MAC). Six cards for six areas of life, to see the tilt and pick one area for the coming month. The session is designed to be run on your own, in your browser, without a therapist or a registration step.
It fits when the feeling that you live in one area while the others hold on by a thread. On the platform the steps walk you through automatically inside Self-Work Navigator, so you don't have to remember anything beyond the question you brought. We recommend starting with Momentum – it lands well for this kind of work.
When this technique fits
- The feeling that you live in one area while the others hold on by a thread.
- The start of a year, a quarter or a new stage: you want to decide where to put your effort.
- Too many plans at once, and you need to pick one without giving up the rest forever.
When it doesn't fit
- If the question is about needs rather than about how your effort is split, take the Needs pyramid: that one has levels from the bottom up, this one has equal areas.
- If one area is swallowing everything for a real reason right now (illness, a crunch, a small child), the layout will show the obvious and may add guilt. Come back when the acute part is over.
What you need
- 25 minutes alone.
- Any general-purpose deck.
- Paper: six areas and a score from zero to ten for each.
The layout
6 positions. Each one has its own question, and the card in it answers that question rather than the whole request.
- 1Health and bodyHow am I with my body right now?
- 2Close peopleHow is it with the people who matter?
- 3WorkHow is the work going?
- 4MoneyHow is it with money?
- 5GrowthWhere am I growing?
- 6RestWhat restores me?
How the session goes
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1
Score the six areas without cards
Health and body. The people close to you. Work. Money. Growth. Rest and recovery.
Give each one a score from zero to ten: how satisfied you are with the way it is now. Not "how much time it takes" but "how all right it is".
- Which area got the lowest score?
- Which score surprised me?
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2
Cards 1-3 face up: the first three areas
Health and body, the people close to you, work. Pick a card with your eyes for each: an image of how that area looks from the inside today.
- What on the card is about this area?
- Does the image match the score I gave?
- What is this area missing?
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3
Cards 4-6 face up: the other three
Money, growth, rest and recovery. One card per area again.
If no card comes for an area, that is an answer too: areas with nothing to say about them are usually the ones nobody touches.
- What is on the card?
- Which area came out empty?
- What is missing here?
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4
Look at all six together
Nobody has six even areas, and the goal is not balance. A tilt becomes a problem when it has held for years and nobody chose it.
- Where is the tilt most visible?
- Which area sagged not this year but long ago?
- Which area would pull the neighbouring ones up if I worked on it?
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5
One area for a month
Pick one, and one action in it. Not a plan for six areas: a plan for six areas never gets done.
- Which area am I taking?
- What will I do in it this week?
- What do I have to drop to make room for it?
Closing the session
Gather the cards, keep the scores and put a date on them. Repeat in a month: six numbers from a month ago say more than any feeling of progress.
If a lot came up
Sometimes the layout shows not a tilt but tiredness in all six areas at once. That is not about priorities, and choosing an area in that state is pointless. Start with recovery, and if the state does not change for weeks, that is a conversation for a therapist.
Recommended decks
About metaphorical associative cards (MAC)
Metaphorical associative cards (MAC) are a projective tool used in self-reflection, coaching and therapy. Unlike tarot or oracle cards, they don't predict anything – the image becomes a mirror for what is already happening inside you, helping you put words on something that was unclear or hard to say directly.
You can work with MAC cards alone, with a therapist, or in a group. The card itself is not the answer; it is a frame for asking yourself a more honest question. The same image can mean very different things to two different people on the same day, and that is exactly what makes the tool work.