Inward Glance
Inward Glance
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Set your intention below to begin the day…

Journals

Daily Focus

Favorite Quote

Habits

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Habit or Feeling Trackers

Use a tracker for anything you want to notice over time — a habit you're building or breaking, or a feeling you want to understand. Each tracker lets you log entries throughout the day using an intensity slider. You can also add an optional note.

Notes

Milestones

Milestone Planning Notes

Home Renovations

Last 7 Days

History

Earlier history
Each percentage is the share of every day in the period on which you completed a habit in that SPIRE category — any habit in a category counts the whole category as done for that day. Days you didn't log count toward the total, so the percentage reflects consistency across the full period.

Journal Entries

Log Trends

Setting your Path
Your creative space
Vision Board
This is your personal space. Use the Guide to help get started. Record your big ideas. Add a beloved quote to those below. Record a book you have been dying to read on your Bookshelf (or choose one from the Resources section of the Guide). Or upload a photo that inspires you. Most importantly, have fun! Did you know you can personalize your Inward Glance's colors by clicking on the three dots in the upper right hand corner?

Big Ideas

Capture a big idea, vision, or thought

Images & Inspiration

No photos yet

Quotes

Add a quote — save as many as you like

Your Resources

Add books, articles, or links that inspire your planning. For curated academic research and recommended reading, visit the Guide tab.
Add your own resource — save as many as you like
How to use this app
Your Personal Guide

You don't need to set everything up at once. Start somewhere. The app will meet you there.

Quick Start Guide

Four things to do — in any order
1
Open Today and check in

Set an intention. Note a glimmer. This is where you'll come every morning — it takes two minutes once you're in a rhythm.

2
Make the habits yours

In the Today tab, tap Edit habits to rename, remove, or add habits that actually fit your life. The default list is a starting point — not a prescription.

3
Write your goals

In the Goals tab, tap Edit goals and replace the placeholder text with what you actually want this year — one area at a time. Honest beats polished.

4
Build your roadmap

In the Roadmap tab, tap Edit roadmap to fill in each year's anchor and pillar focus. Five years. One sentence per area. Don't overthink it — you can revise anytime.

Protecting Your Account

Your session ends automatically when you close the app or browser tab. You'll need to sign in each time you open Inward Glance. Tap × in the top-right corner or ⋯ → Sign out to end your session manually at any time.

Signing out invalidates your session on all devices simultaneously — so if your device is ever lost or stolen, signing out from any other device protects your account immediately.

The why behind Inward Glance
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Hope: Imagining What's Possible

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.

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Gratitude & Glimmers

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.

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Today

The Today tab is your daily home base — a brief morning practice that takes just a few minutes once it becomes a rhythm. Set an intention, note a glimmer of joy, and imagine one step toward what you want. Then check off your habits as the day unfolds. Everything here is date-stamped and private. The habit and feeling trackers live here too, letting you log entries throughout the day to build real awareness over time.

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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 your Glance provides a place to hold ourselves accountable on a daily basis.

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Trackers help you notice a pattern over time, and they work for anything — not just habits you're trying to break. Use one for a good habit you're building (Did I meditate? Move my body? Reach out to a friend?), a habit you'd like to cut back on, or a feeling you want to understand, like anxiety, focus, or motivation.

Log it as many times as you want throughout the day — whenever it comes up — on the 0–5 slider, where 0 means none or not at all and 5 is the strongest. Add an optional note about what was going on. Logging the same thing several times a day, rather than once, builds a far more honest picture than a single daily check-in.

Make each tracker your own: tap ✎ Edit to rename it, relabel the slider's midpoint (default Acted or Felt), and change the word it rates — by default Feeling, shown above the slider as "Feeling intensity." Add as many independent trackers as you like with + Add another tracker in the Today tab, giving each a distinct name so its data stays separate. The Progress tab then turns each tracker into a time-of-day heatmap, so you can see when patterns tend to spike.

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The SPIRE Framework

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:

Spiritual — Discovering my sense of purpose and well-being.
Physical — Caring for my mental and physical health.
Intellectual — Challenging myself by learning new things.
Relational — Nurturing connections with the people I care about — and with myself.
Emotional — My cultivation of pleasurable emotions while embracing painful ones.
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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.

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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.

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Progress

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.

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The Board

The Board is your creative space. Capture big ideas before they slip away, upload photos that inspire you, save quotes you love, and collect links to resources you want to remember. Think of it as a personal vision board that travels with you.

What each tab is for
Today — Your daily check-in. Three short journals (intention, imagination, glimmers), your habit list, and a free-form notes field. Everything here is dated and private.
Goals — Your annual goals, organized by the five SPIRE pillars. Add notes to each category as you reflect and grow. The goals here give direction to your daily habits.
Roadmap — Your five-year long view. One anchor and one focus per pillar per year, plus a milestone checklist and a renovation and project tracker.
Progress — A visual record of your habit streaks, history, recent journal entries, and individual time-of-day heatmaps for each of your habit and feeling trackers. No judgment — just data.
Board — Your creative space. Big ideas, photos that inspire you, quotes you love, and links to resources you want to remember.
The three daily journals
Daily Intention
One sentence that orients your inner state for the day. Write it before you look at your phone. It doesn't have to be profound — it just has to be true. Example: "I will be curious instead of defensive."
Imagine + One Step
What do you hope for, want, or imagine for yourself? Write it freely. Then name one concrete step you could take today — however small. Hope grounded in action is what research calls agency.
Glimmers
Glimmers are the small things that bring you a moment of warmth, beauty, or joy — a flower, a conversation, a good cup of coffee. Notice one and write it down. Over time, this practice rewires what you pay attention to.
The five pillars — SPIRE

The app is organized around five areas of a whole life, from the work of positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar. You don't need to know the theory to use the app — but understanding why these five helps you set goals and habits that actually fill you up rather than just keeping you busy.

Spiritual — Purpose, meaning, and presence. Nature, meditation, stillness, beauty.
Physical — Your body and how you care for it. Movement, sleep, food, hydration.
Intellectual — Learning, creativity, curiosity. Reading, travel, making things.
Relational — The people who matter. Deepening connections, showing up, belonging.

‘…the people who were happiest, who stayed healthiest as they grew old, and who lived the longest were the people who had the warmest connections with other people. In fact, good relationships were the strongest predictor of who was going to be happy and healthy as they grew old.’

Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, McKinsey Author Talks, January 2023. Speaking about The Good Life (Waldinger & Schulz, Simon & Schuster, 2023).

Emotional — Your inner life, equanimity, and security. Financial, psychological, creative.
Want to go deeper?
The following sections walk you through building each part of your Glance in detail — with reflection prompts, creator notes, and lessons from the creator's own process.
Step 1 · Start with yourself

Before you fill in any section of the app, consider 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.

Reflection prompts
• What has been taking the most energy from you lately?
• 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?
How the creator used this step: She identified that decades of balancing career and family had created a kind of depletion — and that entering her sixties made the cost of that visible. Her answers to "what would I do differently" seeded her entire spiritual and physical plan: more nature, more stillness, more movement, more beauty.
Step 2 · Build your daily habits

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.

Prompts for building your habit list
• What is the smallest version of this habit that still counts?
• 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?
AI prompt (e.g., Claude) — paste this prompt
"I am designing a plan for my life and want to build a daily habit list. The structure of my plan uses the SPIRE pillars for goal setting which are: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional — plus a Journals category for the three daily journals (intention, imagine + one step, glimmers and gratitude). My life context: [describe your life — age, work situation, family, well-being, what you're trying to change]. Based on this, suggest 8–12 specific daily habits — each with a name, a short subtitle (what exactly I do), and which SPIRE pillar it belongs to. Make them small enough to do consistently, not aspirational. Avoid vague habits like 'exercise more'. Here is what each SPIRE pillar means: Spiritual — Purpose, meaning, and presence. Nature, meditation, stillness, beauty. Physical — Your body and how you care for it. Movement, sleep, food, hydration. Intellectual — Learning, creativity, curiosity. Reading, travel, making things. Relational — The people who matter. Deepening connections, showing up, belonging. Emotional — Your inner life, equanimity, and security. Financial, psychological, creative."
Lessons from the creator's habit list: She started with the three journal habits as non-negotiables — intention, imagining, and glimmers. Everything else was added around them. The most important discovery: habits that had a specific time (meditation before phone, water glass on waking) stuck far better than open-ended ones. She also added a well-being pillar habit for a specific habit she was trying to change — showing that the app can help with tracking tricky existing "bad" habits, not just aspirational ones.
Step 3 · Set goals by SPIRE pillar

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.

For each SPIRE pillar, ask yourself
• What does thriving look like in this area of my life in one year?
• 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?
AI prompt (e.g., Claude) — paste this prompt
"I'm designing a plan for my life. The five pillars are Spiritual (purpose, well-being), Physical (well-being, body), Intellectual (learning, creativity), Relational (connections, community), and Emotional (inner life, financial security, equanimity). My life context: [describe where you are and what you're working with]. For each pillar, suggest 2–4 specific, honest goals for the next year — not generic, not aspirational-sounding, but grounded in what would actually make a difference in my life. For each goal, include a measurable marker of success and the specific habit or action that would move me toward it."
How to use the journal entries in each goal category
The journal entry field under each goal category is for ongoing reflection — not a to-do list. Use it to write about what's working, what's shifted, what you're noticing. Return to it monthly. Over time these entries become a record of your actual growth, not just your intentions.
What the creator learned about goals: The goals that worked best were the ones that felt slightly uncomfortable to write down — because they were honest. Vague goals ("improve my well-being") gave way to specific ones with real markers. She also found that goals across pillars could reinforce each other: a travel goal became a relational goal (who to go with), an intellectual goal (what to read before going), and a spiritual goal (what to plant in the garden afterward) all at once.
Step 4 · Build your 5-year roadmap

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.

Prompts for building your roadmap
• What is the big thing you want each year to be anchored by — a trip, a project, a transition, a milestone?
• 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?
AI prompt (e.g., Claude) — paste this prompt
"I'm designing a 5-year roadmap for my life covering 2026–2030. For each year I need: a main anchor (trip, project, or major focus), and a one-sentence focus for each of the five pillars I'm using for setting my life's goals: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional. My context: [describe your life — what you're working toward, what matters, any specific trips or projects you have in mind]. Make each year build on the last — early years lay foundations, later years deepen and expand. Be specific rather than generic. Include things that will actually require planning and commitment."
The creator's approach to anchoring each year
She used travel as the anchor for each year — not because travel is the point, but because a real trip with real logistics forces commitment and gives each year a distinct character. Italy anchored 2026, Austria 2027, Japan 2028, Greece 2029, Iceland 2030. From each destination she worked outward: what to read beforehand, what to plant in the garden, who to bring, what skills to develop. The trip became a lens that focused everything else in that year.
You don't have to use travel as your anchor. Other powerful anchors: a creative project you want to complete each year, a relationship milestone (someone you want to invest in deeply), a home project, a professional transition, or a physical challenge. The anchor works when it's specific enough to feel real and important enough to organize other things around.
Step 5 · Set milestones

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.

Prompts for choosing milestones
• What is the first concrete action needed to move each major goal forward?
• 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?
AI prompt (e.g., Claude) — paste this prompt
"Based on my 5-year roadmap and annual goals [paste them], suggest 15–25 specific milestones — concrete, checkable events that mark real progress. Group them by SPIRE (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational and Emotional) pillar and tag each one (Travel, Health, Relational, Spiritual, Emotional, Home). Include a mix of: things to start or try for the first time, things to book or commit to, appointments to make, and achievements to reach. Order them loosely by when they might happen across the five years. Each milestone should be specific enough that I know exactly when I've done it."
Use the Milestone Planning Notes section The Roadmap tab has a planning notes section below the milestones list. Use it to think out loud about your milestones — what's exciting, what feels daunting, what you're not sure about yet. These notes are private and datestamped, so they become a record of your thinking as your plan evolves.
Step 6 · Revisit and refine

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.

A simple review rhythm
Daily: Fill in the three journals and check habits. This is the practice.
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.
AI prompt (e.g., Claude) for your annual review — paste this prompt
"I'm doing my annual review of a plan I designed for my life. Here is my current plan: [paste your goals and roadmap]. Here is what I actually did this year: [describe what happened — what you achieved, what you didn't, what surprised you, what changed]. Help me: (1) identify which goals to keep, deepen, or let go of; (2) update my 5-year roadmap to reflect what I now know; (3) suggest any new habits or milestones based on where I'm headed; (4) name one thing in each SPIRE (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational and Emotional) pillar that deserves more attention next year."
Bookshelf, Research & Resources
Each entry links directly to a source for the book or publication.
Your Books & Resources
Add your own resource — save as many as you like, edit anytime
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Bookshelf
Happier, No Matter What — Tal Ben-Shahar (2021)
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)
The Good Life — Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz (2023)
Bookshelf · Bookshop.org
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Goal Setting and Task Motivation ↗
Locke, E.A. & Latham, G.P. (2002). "Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey." American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705.

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.
Goal Science · Peer-Reviewed
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The Compound Effect of Small Habits ↗
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits. Avery/Penguin Random House.

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.
Book · Practitioner
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PERMA: Building Blocks of Well-Being — Peer-Reviewed Paper (free PDF) ↗
Seligman, M. (2018). "PERMA and the building blocks of well-being." The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(4), 333–335. DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2018.1437466.

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.
Positive Psychology · Peer-Reviewed
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Flourish — Seligman (2011) ↗
Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Free Press/Atria Books.

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 Inward Glance.
Positive Psychology · Book
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Authentic Happiness — Seligman (2002) ↗
Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Authentic Happiness. Free Press.

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.
Positive Psychology · Book
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Hope Theory: The Will and the Ways (free PDF) ↗
Snyder, C.R., Harris, C., Anderson, J.R., et al. (1991). "The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(4), 570–585. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.60.4.570.

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.
Psychology · Peer-Reviewed
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Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being (free PDF) ↗
Emmons, R.A. & McCullough, M.E. (2003). "Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377.

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.
Neuroscience · Peer-Reviewed
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Implementation Intentions (1999 paper, free PDF) ↗
Gollwitzer, P.M. (1999). "Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans." American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.

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."
Behavioral Science · Peer-Reviewed
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Implementation Intentions Meta-Analysis (2006, free PDF) ↗
Gollwitzer, P.M. & Sheeran, P. (2006). "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes." Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.

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.
Behavioral Science · Meta-Analysis
About this app
A note from Stephanie

Hi, I'm Stephanie, the developer of Inward Glance. 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. Inward Glance 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. Inward Glance 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.