This guide walks you through creating a personal LifePrint — one that reflects your life, not a template. It draws on how this app's own creator built her plan, the questions she worked through, and the prompts that helped her get specific. Use it as a starting point and let it evolve.
Before you fill in any section of the app, spend 20–30 minutes answering these questions honestly. Write in a notes app, on paper, or in the Day Notes field in the Today tab. Don't edit yourself — just write.
• What do you keep meaning to do but never quite get to?
• When do you feel most alive and like yourself?
• What would you do differently if you had more time or less fear?
• Who do you most want to be in five years — not what you want to have, but who?
• What one habit, if you did it consistently, would change everything?
• What does a deeply good day look like to you?
Habits are the engine of the plan. They should be small enough to do on your worst day, specific enough to know whether you did them, and meaningful enough that you actually want to. The goal is not to do everything — it's to do the things that compound.
• Which SPIRE pillar does this support? (Each pillar should have at least one habit.)
• Can I do this on a bad day — when I'm tired, traveling, or stressed?
• What time of day does this habit belong in? Morning anchors the day best.
• What is the cue that will trigger this habit?
• What would I need to remove or change to make this habit easier?
Goals give direction to your habits. Where habits are daily, goals are quarterly and annual. The best goals are specific enough to know when you've reached them, honest enough to reflect what you actually want (not what sounds good), and connected to at least one habit that moves you toward them.
• What am I currently avoiding or neglecting here?
• What would I regret not doing in this area if I looked back in five years?
• What specific, measurable thing would signal real progress?
• Which of these goals connects to a daily habit I already have?
The roadmap is your long view — what you're building toward over five years, not just surviving through. The most powerful roadmaps are anchored to specific, concrete things: a trip you want to take, a project you want to complete, a version of yourself you want to grow into. Each year gets a focus across all five SPIRE pillars.
• How do you want your spiritual life to evolve year by year?
• What does your body need to be able to do in year three that it can't now?
• What will you have learned, created, or experienced intellectually by year five?
• Which relationships do you want to have deepened? Who do you want to travel with, create with, invest in?
• What would financial or emotional security look like in five years — specifically?
• What do you want to be able to look back on and say you did?
Milestones are the specific, checkable moments that mark real progress. They are different from goals (which are ongoing directions) and habits (which are daily). A milestone is a concrete event: you either did it or you didn't. Checking one off should feel meaningful.
• What appointments, bookings, or commitments make the roadmap real?
• What are the things you'd feel proud to check off at the end of the year?
• What would you tell a friend you've done — not what you're working toward, but what you've actually done?
• What has a deadline attached to it — something that must happen by a certain time to enable something else?
A plan that doesn't change is a plan that isn't working. Build in regular reviews — the plan should feel like a living conversation with yourself, not a document you filed away.
Weekly: Look at the Progress tab — what patterns are you seeing? Where are the gaps?
Monthly: Add a journal entry to each goal category. What's changed? What do you want to adjust?
Quarterly: Review the roadmap. Is the anchor for the current year still right? Do any milestones need to move?
Annually: Rebuild from scratch if needed. A new year is permission to start over — or to go deeper.
Happier — Tal Ben-Shahar (2007)
Flourish — Martin E.P. Seligman (2011)
Authentic Happiness — Martin E.P. Seligman (2002)
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990)
Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl (1946)
Atomic Habits — James Clear (2018)
Summarizes 35 years of research showing that specific, difficult goals consistently produce higher performance than vague "do your best" directives. Effect sizes in meta-analyses ranged from d = .42 to .80 — among the most replicated findings in organizational psychology.
A practitioner synthesis (not a peer-reviewed study) arguing that consistent small improvements compound dramatically over time. Well-grounded in habit science literature though the "1% compounds to 37×" framing is Clear's own illustration rather than a finding from a specific study. For the peer-reviewed habit science, see the implementation intentions research below.
The peer-reviewed formulation of the PERMA model (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment). Seligman clarifies that PERMA represents the building blocks of well-being rather than a standalone construct. Free PDF hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center.
The book in which PERMA was first introduced. Seligman argues that well-being — not just happiness — should be the goal of positive psychology, and that PERMA's five elements are each pursued for their own sake and contribute independently to flourishing. The foundational text for the framework underlying LifePrint.
Seligman's earlier framework identifying three paths to happiness: the Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life. Preceded PERMA but shares its evidence base in positive psychology research. Together with Flourish, it establishes the academic foundation for goal-setting around the full dimensions of a good life.
Defines hope as a cognitive process with two components: agency (belief you can reach goals) and pathways (ability to generate routes). One of the foundational papers of positive psychology, with 3,900+ citations. Directly informs the Imagine + One Step journal.
Three randomized experiments showing that participants assigned to write about things they were grateful for reported higher positive affect than those assigned to hassles or neutral events. Gratitude-condition participants also exercised more and reported fewer physical symptoms. The glimmers journal is a direct application.
Implementation intentions — "if-then" plans specifying when, where, and how to act — significantly increase goal attainment. Forming the intention "When I wake up, before my phone, I will meditate for 10 minutes" outperforms the vaguer goal "I will meditate more."
Comprehensive meta-analysis of 94 studies on implementation intentions, finding a medium-to-large effect size (d = 0.65) on goal achievement across a wide range of goal domains. Establishes if-then planning as one of the most effective self-regulation strategies documented in the behavioral science literature.
Hi, I'm Stephanie, the developer of LifePrint. I'd like to share with you a little bit about what led me down the path of developing this site and app.
One quick personal note about me. In trying to balance a demanding career along with family and personal obligations, I experienced my share of stress. Around the time I entered my sixth decade around the sun, that pressure began to take a toll both mentally and physically. I sought out tools to help me navigate the growing challenges with my health and overall well-being. This LifePrint app integrates what I learned along the way.
I often close birthday and holiday cards with a note wishing the recipient all that they wish for themselves. LifePrint is intended to help transform that wish into a reality by helping us all design the lives we seek in a deeply personal way. My hope is that this helps you create a plan for living that embraces what you most want for yourself.
Hope helps us thrive when rooted in possibility. Imagining what's possible and then taking concrete baby steps to move toward what's possible gives us hope that is grounded in things that matter to us.
Studies have confirmed that a gratitude practice fills us up and makes us happier. Glimmers are those small things you might notice throughout the day that bring you a bit of joy. The Gratitude and Glimmers journal creates space to record these glimmers and moments of gratitude.
I am busy. The daily habits that if performed would support my well-being have often fallen by the wayside. The daily habits section of LifePrint provides a place to hold ourselves accountable on a daily basis.
We all have that one bad habit — that thing we've been trying to kick but that often gets the best of us. Whether it's binging on social media, biting your nails, or eating unhealthily, the "one irritating habit" tracker improves awareness.
Goals give our life focus. By organizing goals using the SPIRE categories (more on this below), we focus on the things that fill us up.
The Roadmap is our five-year long-term plan. Put those big trips and big ideas that you want to pursue over time on the Roadmap.
The Progress tab allows us to track and hold ourselves accountable. This tab allows us to observe how we improve over time across the areas of our lives that bring us the most happiness and fulfillment.
I honestly cannot recall when or where I first came across SPIRE — but what I do know is that once I learned these five pillars of happiness, I embraced them as a framework for my own journey to find more fulfillment and joy in life.
Author and Positive Psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar coined the mnemonic "SPIRE" to walk us all on this journey. I have adopted the pillars for myself as follows:
"In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of happiness studies — bridging East and West, drawing on the works of philosophers, economists, psychologists and biologists — I have come to look at Wholebeing as a multidimensional, multifaceted variable that includes five elements. Together, these five elements form the acronym SPIRE."
— TAL BEN-SHAHAR, Happier, No Matter What
A spire is "the highest point or summit of something" — just as happiness, being the ultimate currency, is the highest on the hierarchy of goals.
A spire also refers to the sprout at the end of a seed when it begins to germinate, leading the rest of the plant upwards through the soil to flourish — likewise, the pursuit of happiness can help us break through boundaries and limitations that hold us back.
Finally, the etymological root "spire" — as in respire and inspire — refers to one's breath or life force. Pursuing happiness can inspire us and make us come alive.
This tool can be personalized around these pillars in any manner that motivates and inspires you. The habits, goals, and roadmap are all fully editable — tap "Edit habits," "Edit goals," or "Edit roadmap" in each section to make them your own.
My hope is that you have fun with this, and use it to inspire you to take your own journey. ✦