Journal prompts to get clear on what you want in life

Twelve questions to sit with, one page at a time. No right answers, and no need to finish them in a single evening.

By Kim, Cartelle TeamRead time: 1 min

An open tan Companion beside a fountain pen

Most of us know what we do not want. Naming what we do want is harder, and it rarely arrives as a single bright idea. It turns up slowly, on paper, when you give it room.

These prompts are the ones we come back to at the start of a new season. Take one a day, write for ten minutes, and resist the urge to tidy your answers.

Start with the present

  1. What part of an ordinary day do I look forward to most?
  2. When did I last lose track of time, and what was I doing?
  3. What am I tolerating that I would not choose again?
  4. Who leaves me feeling more like myself?

Then look a little further

  1. If nothing changed in the next five years, how would I feel?
  2. What would I try if I knew nobody was watching?
  3. What does a good Sunday look like, hour by hour?
Clarity is less a lightning bolt than a pile of honest pages.

When you have filled a few pages, read them back a week later. The answers that keep reappearing, in different words, are usually the ones worth listening to.