Scripting · “You Assign the Meaning”
Goals with Soul
Set goals and to-dos chosen because they generate your core desired feelings — making the feeling the target and the goal the means.
In 4 lines: Put your core desired feelings in front of you. For each life area ask, “what could I do that would make me feel this?” Write goals and to-dos that serve the feeling, then schedule them across year/month/week/today. The feeling is the target; the goal is the means.
What it is
This is the action half of Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map method, and it only works once you have done the first half — naming your core desired feelings (see the companion practice).
“Goals with soul” reverses the usual order of goal-setting. Instead of picking a goal and hoping it will eventually make you feel good, you start from the feeling you want and then choose goals, projects, and daily to-dos because they generate that feeling. As LaPorte frames it, you are not really after the goal — you are after the feeling you think the goal will give you — so you make the feeling the target and the goal the means. It is a written planning practice (you draft goals and actions on paper, mapped to feelings) and it operationalizes The Inner Creates the Outer (the felt state is what’s actually driving the pursuit) and The Inner Creates the Outer (you act from who you intend to be).
The Method
A faithful rendering of LaPorte’s published guidance:
- Start from your core desired feelings. Have your 3–5 core desired feelings in front of you. They are the criteria everything else gets measured against.
- Go area by area and ask a different question. For each domain (livelihood & lifestyle, body & wellness, creativity & learning, relationships & society, essence & spirituality), don’t ask “what should I achieve here?” Ask “what could I do here that would generate my core desired feelings?”
- Write goals and to-dos that serve the feeling. Capture concrete goals, projects, and next actions — but each one earns its place because it is in service of a desired feeling, not for its own sake. LaPorte’s phrase is to “match your soul with your roles”: align the practical with the felt.
- Scale across time. Translate this into actual plans — what you’ll do this year, this month, this week, today — so the feeling-led intentions become scheduled actions, not just sentiments.
- Keep the feeling primary, hold the form loosely. If a goal stops serving the feeling, it can change; the feeling is what you’re committed to, the specific goal is negotiable. (Sourcing note: “goals with soul,” “match your soul with your roles,” and the feeling-as-target framing are LaPorte’s published teaching, attributed and paraphrased; short phrases are her terms.)
Source & Lineage
Danielle LaPorte introduced “Goals with Soul” as the subtitle and spine of The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul (Sounds True, 2012; expanded 2014).
It builds directly on her Core Desired Feelings practice and secularizes the New Thought claim that feeling is the operative force into a goal-design tool. It is kin to intrinsic-motivation and values-aligned goal frameworks, to “ideal scene” planning (Marc Allen), and to “begin with the end-feeling in mind” approaches in coaching.
Common refinements
Skipping the prerequisite. Without genuine core desired feelings, “goals with soul” collapses back into ordinary goal-listing. Do the feelings work first.
- Feelings without action. The most common failure mode: clarifying lovely feelings and never converting them into scheduled, concrete next steps. Map feelings to to-dos.
- Using ‘alignment’ to dodge hard work. Necessary tasks sometimes feel boring or scary before they feel good. Don’t let “it doesn’t feel aligned” excuse avoidance.
- Rigidly clinging to a specific goal. The feeling is the commitment; if a goal stops serving it, let the goal change.
- Vague to-dos. “Feel abundant” is a feeling, not an action. Pair each feeling with something you can actually put on a calendar.