Coaching practices for Life Crafting Goals

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Life Crafting Goals, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I have this stirring picture of the life I want but no idea how to turn it into anything I can actually do
  • Every time I set goals they end up being what I think I’m supposed to want
  • I set a clear direction for my life a while back, but I’ve changed since then and the old plan has started to feel like an obligation I’m failing rather than something I still want
  • On paper I’ve hit the goal
  • I’m grinding so hard on these goals and they drain me instead of pulling me forward, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m chasing something that fit who I was years ago rather than what this stretch of life is actually asking of me.

Practices that may help

  1. Translate the narrative into domain-specific goals
    Break the future-life story into one concrete goal per life domain.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  2. Excavate core values before writing goals
    Identify what you most fundamentally care about before deciding what you want — or goals will be other people’s.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  3. The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
    The life crafting intervention, developed by Schippers and Ziegler, is a structured writing exercise in which participants vividly reflect on their core values, write a narrative of their ideal future life, and translate that into concrete goals. A randomized controlled trial found significantly improved self-concordant goal motivation and work engagement at follow-up, making it one of the better-tested purpose interventions available.
  4. Periodic life-crafting refresh
    Revisit and revise your best-possible-life narrative every 6–12 months as your context changes.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  5. Set lifestyle anti-goals to protect daily experience, not just outcomes
    The quality of your daily experience matters — define the daily conditions you refuse to accept, not just the outcomes.
    Anti-Goals: Defining Success by What You Refuse to Accept
  6. Align your goals with the developmental task of your season
    Goals that match what your season is asking produce energy; goals that fight the season drain it.
    Seasons of Life
  7. Bridge from signature strengths to purpose
    Identify the top two or three things you do better than most people and trace how they can serve something larger.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  8. Wish — name a meaningful, challenging goal
    Pick one wish that is hard but feasible, and that genuinely matters to you.
    WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan
  9. Map the obstacles: WOOP your life-crafting goals
    For each goal, identify the most likely internal obstacle and plan your response before you need it.
    The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self
  10. Set goals that build on your signature strengths
    Design goals that let your top strengths be the primary vehicle rather than your weak spots.
    VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical

Related concerns

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.

Practice this with IX Coach

Try this practice