By: Danielle Laporte
Reviewed by: Glain Roberts-McCabe
The Premise: Consultant Danielle Laporte offers up a new way to approach goal setting through the Desire Map process. Instead of focusing on setting goals and “to-do” lists, Laporte encourages readers to focus on their core emotional desires – to be loved, to be happy, to be connected – as an anchor to finding “goals with soul”. Her provocation is that, by starting from the inside out and connecting with the type of feelings you want to experience before the things you want to achieve, you will experience greater fulfillment. The book is broken down into two parts: the first is background on the Desire Map philosophy and process overview, and the second is a workbook to help you identify your core desires. Laporte mixes in healthy doses of spirituality, inspiration and affirmations throughout and you do feel as if you’re having more of a conversation with her as you read through the material.
The Bottom-line: One of our members had mentioned Danielle’s work to me as a resource for our own goal setting process here at The Executive Roundtable. I was intrigued by the concept since structured goal setting is something that I’ve always personally struggled with. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve only read the first part to Danielle’s book and have been working through the workbook portion over the holidays. So far, I’ve found the material intriguing. The process made me think of Dan Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind” where he highlighted that, despite having more “stuff” than any other previous generation, people are generally unhappier than they were in the 50 years ago. Taking the emphasis off pursuing acquisitions (a new job, a new car, more money, a trip to Florida) and putting the emphasis on how you want to feel (more connected, more energized, more engaged) seems to make sense. By focusing on your core desires, you may make different choices that – although you may not be able to “check them off your list” – may get you to a better place at the end of the year. I’ll let you know how my experiment with the Desire Map goes through my blog over 2014.
Check out the book and website here.
