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
- Write a short Workview: what work means to you and what makes it worthwhile beyond money.
- Write a short Lifeview: what a meaningful life consists of and where work fits in it.
- 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. About this work
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Designing Your Life, Made Practical
- Reframe a dysfunctional belief
Catch the stuck belief ("it’s too late to change careers") and rewrite it as a workable design problem.
- Draft three Odyssey Plans
Sketch three different five-year lives — not variations on one, but genuinely divergent paths.
- Prototype with conversations and experiences
Test a possible path cheaply — talk to someone living it, or try a small slice — before betting on it.
- Wayfinding with a Good Time Journal
Track when you feel engaged and energized to find direction from data, not a sudden epiphany.
- Spot gravity problems
Distinguish problems you can act on from "gravity problems" you can only accept and route around.
Related concepts
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