Write your Workview and Lifeview

Articulate what work is for and what life is for — then check whether they point the same way.

Why it works

Most direction-conflict is two unstated philosophies pulling against each other: a Workview (why you work, what good work is) and a Lifeview (what a life is for). Writing both makes the collision visible and gives you a stable yardstick to evaluate options against, so choices stop feeling like coin-flips and start being measured against something you actually believe.

How to do it

1. Write a short Workview: what work means to you and what makes it worthwhile beyond money.
2. Write a short Lifeview: what a meaningful life consists of and where work fits in it.
3. Read them side by side and mark where they conflict — that tension is the thing to resolve.

Evidence

This is a values-clarification exercise, and clarifying and acting on personal values is a well-supported component of acceptance-based therapies. The Workview/Lifeview framing is Designing Your Life’s particular packaging of it. A meta-analysis by A-Tjak and colleagues (2015) of 39 randomized trials (1,821 patients) found acceptance and commitment therapy — of which values clarification is a core component — outperformed controls with a moderate effect (Hedges’ g = 0.57), anchoring the clinical strength of the values work this exercise draws on. (mechanistic)

Values work has clinical support broadly; the specific two-document format is a teaching structure rather than a separately validated intervention.

Sources

• A-Tjak, J. G. L., Davis, M. L., Morina, N., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A. J., & Emmelkamp, P. M. G. (2015). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy for clinically relevant mental and physical health problems. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(1), 30–36.

Common mistake

Writing what you think you should value (or what sounds noble) rather than what you actually do, so the yardstick measures a stranger’s life.