Level 10 Life – How to Easily Track Personal Growth

The Level 10 Life chart is a fantastic way to discover your goals, but with a few small tweaks, it can also help you track personal growth.

A Miracle Morning

One of my favorite things about the bullet journal system is its ability to help you achieve and track personal growth in various areas of your life.

Whether it is tracking patterns from daily task lists, collecting data on habits, or being more thankful with a gratitude log, there is always something helping you grow.

One of my favorite methods for fostering positive development is the Level 10 Life from Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning.

What Is A Level 10 Life?

A Level 10 Life is a productivity method created by Hal Elrod that helps you get a better understanding of how you feel about the current state of your life, which helps you when goal setting.

The system allows you to step back and reevaluate your life, by assigning levels of success to different categories. 

What Categories Do I Include in My Level 10 Life?

You can be a bit flexible with what topics or categories you include, but if you want to keep it simple, you can use a few ideas from these basic categories to represent your areas of life:

• Health and Fitness
• Physical Environment
• Gift and/or Contributions
• Fun and Recreation
• Marriage or Relationship
• Career
• Finances and Expenses
• Spiritual
• Personal Development
• Family Members and Friends

The most important thing is that you use categories that will allow you to get an accurate snapshot of your life and where you feel that you can give an honest self assessment.

Changing Up the Level 10 Life Chart

One of the most significant changes I made to my Level 10 Life set up is the format of the chart itself. It is most commonly seen as a circle graph with ten pieces of pie and ten levels within the radius.

I used this layout for my first two iterations, and it is simply beautiful when it is done. However, drawing out ten nearly perfect circles and figuring out how to slice it into ten even sections is time-consuming.

Even with the dot grid of my Leuchtturm1917, it was a lengthy process. Perhaps it would go faster with a compass, but those give me flashbacks to high school Algebra. No thank you!

I decided to go with a simpler bar graph for this Level 10 Life spread. I created ten levels on the X-axis and the ten areas of my life on the Y-axis in pencil.

Then I inked it all with my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and my Micron pens for the smaller details. I’m a stickler for that comic book hand-drawn vibe.

Without looking at my previous charts, I rated each area of my life as honestly as I could.

Then I used my Tombow Dual Brush Pens and colored in the bars. Well, except for the very last bar at the bottom. I ran out of Tombows, so I used my Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen in cobalt green to complete the chart.

When I was all done, I was thrilled with how vibrant and cheerful this chart turned out! Aren’t those colors just wonderful?

Of course, I wrote out each section on the next page, using a Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen (hard tip) for the section headers.

Then I wrote my goals for each section, so I know what steps to take next to continue my personal growth.

Track Your Personal Growth

Another edit I made to the original layout is the addition of the progress tracker. This is a feature that wouldn’t work for first-timers to the Level 10 Life system. But it would be perfect for anyone doing another chart after some time.

You see, I struggled to connect a new chart to an old one in a meaningful way. I could go back and look at that year’s level of satisfaction, but I wouldn’t be able to remember what areas shrunk or grew since the last time. I decided to make that information more transparent.

The method is simple. After I assessed each area of my life, I checked the last levels for each section in my most recent chart. I would mark the last recorded level with a dotted line on the new chart. In the space between the dotted line and the current level marker, I’d write how many levels I moved.

For example, I did not feel very confident or enthusiastic about my career six months ago. I marked my career section at a measly three and moved on.

This time, without referencing the old chart, I rated my career as the highest level on the whole chart at an 8. So I drew a dotted line on the three mark to indicate the last recorded level and wrote +5 in the margins to remind me of my astonishing growth.

I did this on every level and was pleased to find that in no section did I lose ground. At worst, I made no progress toward my goals, and at best, I made enormous leaps toward my ideal self. All around, I’m thrilled!

Make One Every Year

I have completed the Level 10 Life chart a few times and enjoyed it thoroughly every time. I create a fresh chart about every six months or so to try to track personal growth.

It helps me identify areas of my life that I want to improve. Then I can make thoughtful, actionable steps towards those goals.

This is a bit trickier than you might expect, but the Level 10 Life chart helps you flesh out your true feelings about the many facets of your life in a simple but powerful way.

Every year when I move to a new bullet journal, I make sure to do a new level 10 life.

It is just so nice to step back and look back on the previous year. My level 10 life in my 2020 bullet journal was my fourth straight year creating one, and

I highly recommend that you be sure to create one at least once a year, but every six months is ideal. 

That’s All, Folks

The Level 10 Life chart is an amazing tool for self-discovery and introspection, ultimately helping you live your best life. I would recommend that everyone try it at least once. And if you feel like the original version isn’t quite right for you, then don’t be shy about editing it!

After all, it’s a tool for you to use – so make it work for you and the different areas of your life. I love the changes I made to my Level 10 Life and the personal growth that I saw. I can’t wait to see how I’ve grown next year!