The LifePrint Exercise: Defining Your Impact Before Your Career

We spend so much time chasing the idea of what we should do with our lives that we often forget to pause and ask the deeper question: Who do I want to be? Before careers, titles, or job descriptions, before any of that, there’s the mark you leave. It's the impact you want to create. That is your LifePrint.

PureDesign starts at that point, at the level of values and intention. Because if you don’t know what matters most to you, you’ll build a life around the expectations and desires of others instead of your own compass.

This exercise is about creating a LifePrint: a personal map that grounds you in your values, clarifies your goals, and shapes the habits that will help sustain you.

Step 1: Name Your Values

Think of the three to five values that feel non-negotiable to you. These are the truths you want to carry through to every decision you make. Things like compassion, curiosity, freedom, or integrity, to name a few.

Don’t overthink. Write the words that rise up when you ask yourself the question, What must be present for my life to feel meaningful?

Step 2: Imagine Your Impact

Close your eyes and picture a moment in the future where you know you’ve lived in alignment with those values you just outlined above. What are you doing? Who is around you? How are people different because of you? Write it down, even if it feels a little dreamy or corny. This is the imprint you’re shaping.

Step 3: Set Your Goals

Now, translate impact into direction. If your value is curiosity and your vision is to expand knowledge in your community, what goal would make those two possible? It might be “earn a degree in a field I love” or “start a learning circle in my town.” Goals become the bridge between your values and reality.

Step 4: Align Your Habits

Goals without habits are just dreams. If your goal is to share knowledge, your habit might be reading up on the latest research in your field for 20 minutes every morning, or scheduling weekly conversations with people you admire in your field. Small, repeated actions like these carve the pathway to your LifePrint.

Step 5: Revisit and Refine

Your LifePrint isn’t fixed. You’re allowed to adjust as you grow. The key is to keep checking back in, asking yourself, Am I living from my values or drifting away from them?

The Invitation

Your LifePrint is bigger than a career. It’s the story of who you are and the legacy you’re shaping, piece by piece. Before you decide what title to chase, start here: What values will guide me? What impact do I want to have?

Take a moment today to sketch out your own LifePrint, following these steps. See what emerges when you give yourself permission to design from the inside out.