PDF Summary:The Desire Map, by Danielle LaPorte

If you struggle to achieve your goals, or still feel unhappy after achieving them, it might be because those were never the right goals for you. In The Desire Map, leadership and self-help expert Danielle LaPorte says people pursue the wrong goals because they think too much about what they want to do when they should instead focus on how they want to feel.

In our guide, we’ll explain LaPorte’s definition of desire and why desire is crucial for making decisions and taking action. We’ll then describe how you can use desire and other emotions to set goals that really matter to you, and then work toward those goals in enjoyable and fulfilling ways.

Our commentary will compare and contrast LaPorte’s ideas with the principles of other influential self-help books. We’ll also explain how science supports LaPorte’s approach to goal-setting. Finally, we’ll provide some advice from other experts on figuring out how you really want to feel and how you can fulfill that desire.

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Therefore, LaPorte argues that you should set goals regarding how you want to feel, not specific things you want to achieve. By taking this approach you’ll ensure that you feel good while pursuing your goals, not just after you achieve them. Furthermore, because you’re acting in ways that align with your genuine interests and personality, you’re likely to find that you’re more successful than you were while pursuing goals based on traditional metrics of “success.”

Process Goals Versus Outcome Goals

Although she doesn’t use this term, LaPorte is urging you to set outcome goals. This means that she wants you to start with a desired outcome (how you want to feel), then work backwards to figure out how to reach that result. In contrast, process goals are those that you believe will get you closer to whatever outcome you really desire. For example, if your desired outcome is to feel safe and secure, becoming a millionaire might be one of the process goals you achieve on your path toward that feeling.

Experts say goal-setting is most effective when you use a combination of process goals and outcome goals. This strategy allows you to reap the benefits of concrete, achievable process goals with the “big picture” focus of outcome goals. To set both kinds of goals, start with an outcome goal—the feeling you really desire—and then set smaller process goals building up to that outcome. LaPorte might say your process goals should be focused on feelings rather than achievements, too—so if you want to feel safe and secure, you might start with process goals like cultivating a sense of trust in your ability to handle challenges and a feeling of groundedness in your daily life.

Now, we’ll discuss LaPorte’s advice for getting in touch with your feelings so you know what you really desire, setting specific goals based on those desires, and pursuing those goals effectively.

Step 1: Connect With Your Feelings

LaPorte says that you should set goals that reflect who you are and fulfill your deep-seated desires, but you may find that you don’t really know who you are and what you want. Therefore, the first step in this process is to conduct a thorough examination of yourself.

LaPorte offers a series of questions that help get you into a reflective mindset and connect with your deepest feelings and desires. She encourages you to answer each question with a sentence or two. A few of these questions include:

• What are your values? Think about which personal qualities are most important to you and which qualities you can’t stand in yourself or others. Alternatively, consider which core beliefs (religious or secular) guide your day-to-day actions.
• What brings you joy? For example, this might be a loved one or a pet, a certain activity that you really enjoy, or a material possession that’s very important to you.
• What do you naturally excel at? Think about where your natural talents and interests lie.
• Why do you push through difficult situations? Note that the question is not how, but why—think about what keeps you going when you’re frustrated, tired, or upset.
• What do you want more of in your life? LaPorte urges you to think of answers beyond “time” and “money,” because those things are just means to an end. For example, if you feel lonely, then you likely want more love in your life; if you’re often bored, then perhaps you want more purpose.

Ikigai: Your Life’s Purpose

LaPorte’s method of figuring out what you want in life closely resembles the Japanese idea of finding your ikigai: your reason for being. In their book of the same name, self-help writers Héctor García and Francesc Miralles say that you can find your ikigai by answering four questions:

1. What do you love to do? This is similar to LaPorte’s suggestion to ask what brings you joy, but García and Miralles ask you to focus on tasks: What activities do you really enjoy doing? What tasks tend to bring a sense of satisfaction once they’re done?

2. What are you good at? This is the same as LaPorte’s question: What do you naturally excel at?

3. What does the world need? People tend to find fulfillment in being useful to others—and this is especially true in Japanese culture, which places far less importance on individualism than many Western cultures do. Therefore, this question asks how you can make yourself useful: What can you do to make the world a better place in some small way?

4. What can you get paid to do? Unless you’re lucky enough to be independently wealthy, your life’s purpose will have to be something that you can sustain yourself with.

First, answer each question separately, then look for answers that recur. For example, maybe you’re good at caretaking and the world needs more of that. Anything that meets all four criteria is a good candidate for your ikigai.

However, in the context of The Desire Map, note that the concept of ikigai is based on the traditional method of goal-setting: It focuses on what you want to do. This is the primary way that it differs from LaPorte’s approach of determining how you want to feel.

Self-Connection and Self-Reflection Are Ongoing Processes

LaPorte adds that recognizing and connecting with your innermost feelings is an everyday practice, not just something you do once and then forget about. She encourages developing emotional literacy through various means like art, music, and literature—indulge in experiences that evoke strong feelings inside of you, and pay attention to what those feelings are.

You can also learn more about emotions through your interactions with other people. Those experiences not only give you the opportunity to reflect on your own feelings but to study other people’s emotional responses as well.

Recall that your feelings, whether positive or negative, give you important feedback about the situations you find yourself in and the actions you take. Therefore, LaPorte urges you to pay continual special attention to the things that make you feel grateful as you go through your daily life—like your family and friends, your job, your hobbies, your health, and so on. Anything that you feel grateful for is fulfilling some deep-seated desire, even if you aren’t yet sure what that desire is.

You should also pay attention to what brings up feelings of frustration, dread, or boredom. LaPorte says such feelings are signs that some part of your life isn’t aligned with your true desires. It’s not always possible to change those parts of your life right away—for example, even if you dread going to work, you’re most likely not in a position to simply quit without first lining up a new source of income—but this is still important information that warrants further consideration.

Tip: Improve Your Understanding by Increasing Your Vocabulary

One obstacle that hinders many people from understanding their feelings is a lack of vocabulary to describe those feelings.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown says that many people are only able to identify three emotions: sadness, happiness, and anger. As a result, even if they try to connect with their feelings like LaPorte discusses here, they won’t fully understand what they’re feeling. To remedy this, Brown suggests expanding your emotional vocabulary as part of self-connection and self-reflection.

For example, Brown defines happiness simply as being pleased with your current situation. The definition is intentionally broad and vague, leaving room for you to explore what specific kind of pleasure you’re feeling. If you experience something that makes you briefly but intensely happy, you’re feeling joy. On the other hand, if you’ve just finished your work for the week and you’re now going into the weekend with a sense of calm satisfaction, you’re experiencing tranquility.

Furthermore, while joy and tranquility could both be called “happiness,” they’re very different from one another, and the word happiness doesn’t fully explain either of them. Therefore, this example highlights the importance of knowing the right words to understand and identify your specific emotions.

Step 2: Think About How You Want to Feel

After asking yourself a few questions to get into a self-reflective mindset, the next step is to determine how you want to feel. In other words, what emotions do you most desire to experience?

LaPorte suggests choosing three to five words that reflect how you’d like to feel every day, in all aspects of your life: your work life, your home life, your local community, and so on. To do this, start by brainstorming desired feelings in each life area. Next, look for words or themes your lists for each area have in common. Finally, distill your desired feelings down to an essential few that you want to experience every day, no matter what you’re doing.

(Shortform note: In contrast to LaPorte, self-help author Mark Manson says in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F∗ck that focusing too much on your feelings inevitably leads to failure and discouragement. Manson argues that emotions are fickle and unreliable, so the things that make you feel good one day might not have the same effect on the next day. Furthermore, he says that people whose goal is to feel good all the time tend to avoid challenging themselves because it’s uncomfortable, which stifles their personal growth and achievements. For Manson, true happiness can only come from solving meaningful problems. For example, if you struggle with loneliness (a problem), the solution might be to find a loving partner to share your life with.)

To give a brief example of LaPorte’s process, someone might come up with the following desired feelings:

• Home: Peace, joy, connection
• Work: Importance, engagement, usefulness
• Community: Belonging, support, fun

The person could then determine that “connection,” “engagement,” and “fun” have a common theme of being interested in what’s around them. This suggests that they want all aspects of their life to hold their full attention. This person might then choose the word interest as one of their desired feelings.

(Shortform note: It may be difficult to pin down exactly what feelings you want to experience—remember our earlier commentary discussing how many people lack emotional vocabulary, and thus struggle to identify their emotions. To help you get started, consider some of the words that people most commonly use to describe their positive feelings. For instance, when people feel good about the future, they commonly say they’re feeling optimism or hope. Someone who feels good about someone else often says they feel affection or love toward that other person. Finally, people who feel good about themselves often describe that experience as pride or confidence.)

Step 3: Pursue Your Desired Feelings

Once you’ve identified three to five feelings as your overall goals, the final step is to pursue those feelings. Consider what actions, possessions, experiences, or achievements would cause you to feel the ways you want to feel. LaPorte advises you to come up with a well-rounded strategy that involves yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily actions.

First of all, set three or four major intentions for the year. These are long-term objectives that will help you to build the life you want and feel how you want to feel. For instance, if you want to feel confident, one of your goals for the year might be to lose 30 pounds. In this hypothetical, perhaps you’ve determined that losing weight will make you more attractive, which in turn will make you feel more confident.

(Shortform note: When setting your major intentions for the year, don’t be afraid to go big. In The 10X Rule, entrepreneur and business coach Grant Cardone suggests figuring out what a “reasonable” goal would be, then multiplying that goal by ten. Cardone reasons that setting bold, seemingly impossible goals will motivate you to work harder and find creative ways to reach those goals that you would never have thought of otherwise. He also says that it’s better to fall short of a 10X goal than to reach a reasonable goal. For example, if a reasonable goal for you is to save up $10,000 over the next year, the 10X goal would be to save $100,000. Even if you only manage to reach, say, $30,000, you’ve still tripled your original goal.)

Next, says LaPorte, set a time each month to check in with yourself. Determine which parts of your strategy are working for you—in other words, what you’re doing that actually produces your desired feelings—and which parts aren’t working. Tweak your plans as needed.

Continuing the previous example, suppose that you want to lose weight but find that you dread going to the gym. In that case, you might update your plan by replacing the gym with a more enjoyable form of exercise, such as joining a community sports team or a martial arts school.

(Shortform note: LaPorte suggests these monthly check-ins as ways to evaluate and adjust your plans, but if you recognize that something isn’t working for you, there’s no need to wait for your next check-in to fix it. In The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker explains that Toyota immediately stops production for even minor errors in their assembly process. He says this approach is more efficient in the long run than pushing through minor problems because addressing problems improves the quality of the entire process going forward. You can apply this same principle to your strategy for pursuing desired feelings: If you recognize something is consistently not producing desired feelings, stop doing it as soon as possible and look for a better way to reach your goals.)

LaPorte also suggests making weekly action plans for yourself. Remember that you’re planning how you’ll generate particular feelings, not how you’ll accomplish specific goals. So your action plan for feeling confident would probably include a healthy meal plan and your exercise routine for the week, but it might also include going to the library to pick up a book about self-esteem.

(Shortform note: Experts offer various opinions on the optimal timeframe for action plans. For instance, contrary to what LaPorte says here, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney (Willpower) say that weekly plans tend to make people lose sight of their long-term goals. According to Baumeister and Tierney, the best method is to plan one month in advance—they argue that this approach strikes the ideal balance between the flexibility of short-term plans and the goal-oriented focus of long-term plans.)

Finally, says LaPorte, look for small things you can do or experience each day that generate your desired emotional states. For example, if your goal is to feel more confident, you might try intentionally choosing outfits that make you feel attractive—that way, when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror throughout the day, you feel a burst of confidence.

(Shortform note: Some psychologists refer to small, positive experiences (like feeling confident when you look in the mirror) as glimmers: momentary stimuli that cause you to feel happy and calm. Some other common glimmers include the feeling of sunshine, the taste and warmth of coffee, and the experience of petting a dog or cat.)

Be Self-Assured and Practical

LaPorte encourages you to be confident about your desires and goals: Don’t sabotage yourself (or allow others to sabotage you) with thoughts that your desires are unimportant or unrealistic. Happiness and life satisfaction are always worth pursuing, regardless of what that pursuit looks like for you. Seeking excitement as, say, a traveling performer is just as valid as seeking stability as a corporate CEO.

(Shortform note: LaPorte says that you might sabotage your own happiness if you lack confidence. In Your Erroneous Zones, self-improvement expert Wayne Dyer discusses this concept in more detail, saying that people typically self-sabotage in one of two ways. First, people get in their own way by waiting for others to give them approval or permission to do what they want to do. In short, they lack the self-assuredness to make and carry out a plan of action until they know they have support from others. Second, people tend to play it safe; they’re afraid of what might happen if they try something new, so they keep doing the same familiar things, even if those things don’t make them happy or bring them fulfillment.)

At the same time, LaPorte says that you must be realistic about your plans. Everybody has limits to what they can do—you might be constrained by your budget, your work schedule, your health, or countless other factors. So it’s important to pursue your desired feelings in ways that are reasonable given your situation.

For example, if you work a full-time job and have family members relying on you, then pursuing a feeling of calmness by going on a year-long spiritual retreat is most likely not in the cards for you. On the other hand, you could very reasonably pursue that same feeling by practicing meditation at home, buying a good set of earplugs to shut out noise when needed, and making time each week to rest and relax.

Reality Check: Start Small

Reorganizing your entire life around desired feelings might seem overwhelming, but don’t overlook the power of small changes. In Atomic Habits, James Clear explains that small changes to your normal routines can culminate in major life transformations. This happens because one small change often inspires you to make further changes.

For instance, suppose you start going to an exercise class, but find that you always feel sick to your stomach while you’re there. To prevent the nausea, you start eating smaller and healthier meals on your workout days. Now one good habit (regular exercise) has led directly to a second one (a healthier diet)—and those two habits together could lead to drastic health improvements.