| QUICK ANSWER |
| Life crafting is a structured positive psychology intervention developed by researcher Marta Schippers that combines values reflection, best possible self writing, competency assessment, and goal planning to help people find and pursue purpose. Unlike passive purpose searching, life crafting is an active, structured process rooted in implementation intentions research, positive psychology interventions, and the life design movement. Research shows it produces measurable improvements in purpose, goal engagement, and wellbeing compared to control conditions. |
Table of Contents
Most approaches to finding your purpose treat it as a discovery problem: you search for something already hidden inside you, and the task is to find it. Life crafting, developed by Dutch organisational psychologist Marta Schippers and reported in Frontiers in Psychology, treats purpose as a design problem: you actively construct a purposeful life through a structured process of values clarification, vision creation, and goal planning.
The distinction matters because it changes what you do. Discovery approaches lead to introspection and waiting. Design approaches lead to structured action. Research supports the design framing: purpose tends to emerge from engaged activity more than from passive reflection, and the people who report the clearest sense of purpose are not those who spent the most time thinking about it but those who spent time acting on their values and observing what produced genuine engagement and contribution.
The Seven Components of Life Crafting
Schippers and Ziegler’s life crafting intervention combines seven evidence-based elements drawn from positive psychology and implementation intentions research. Values and passion discovery involves structured reflection on core values and genuine enthusiasms, producing a clearer sense of what matters most. This stage draws on values clarification research showing that explicitly naming values increases their influence on subsequent decisions.
Best possible self writing, the second component, asks participants to write in detail about their future self in a scenario where everything has gone as well as possible. Research by Laura King found that best possible self writing improved mood and produced more optimistic future expectations. Schippers incorporated it into life crafting because vision-based writing activates the self-regulatory processes that connect present choices to future goals.
Competency reflection, social life reflection, career reflection, ideal future writing, goal planning, and public commitment complete the seven components. Each stage builds on the previous: values provide the criteria for vision, vision provides the direction for goals, goals are structured with implementation intentions (if-then plans that link specific situations to specific actions), and public commitment activates social accountability. The structured sequence is what distinguishes life crafting from generic self-help journalling.
| RESEARCH NOTE: Life Crafting Research |
| Schippers and Ziegler (2019) published the life crafting framework in Frontiers in Psychology, drawing on research from multiple disciplines including implementation intentions, positive psychology interventions, best possible self writing, and goal-setting theory. Their review of prior research found consistent evidence that each component independently improved goal engagement and wellbeing, and proposed that the combination would produce effects larger than any single component. Research by Schippers and colleagues on related interventions with university students found significant improvements in academic engagement and goal commitment. The framework awaits larger randomised controlled trials, but its component evidence base is solid. |
Implementation Intentions: The Key Mechanism
One of the most important elements in life crafting, and in purpose-building more generally, is the use of implementation intentions, a concept developed by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer. Implementation intentions take the form of if-then plans: if situation X occurs, then I will perform behaviour Y. Research by Gollwitzer and Sheeran found, in a meta-analysis of 94 studies, that implementation intentions significantly improved goal attainment compared to simple goal intentions, with effects that held across health, educational, and personal development domains.
The mechanism is habit formation: implementation intentions link intentions to specific situational cues, effectively recruiting the automatic behaviour system in service of deliberate goals. Each time the specified situation occurs and the behaviour follows, the cue-response association strengthens, making goal-relevant behaviour progressively more automatic. This is why life crafting includes explicit goal planning with implementation intentions rather than simply helping people identify values and vision.
Research on life design by Burnett and Evans at Stanford, whose Designing Your Life framework extends similar principles to career and life planning, provides converging support. Their research found that the most effective life design processes involved rapid prototyping, taking small purposeful actions to test assumptions about what would be meaningful, rather than comprehensive planning without action. The iterative action-and-reflection cycle they describe is consistent with the research finding that purpose is found through doing.
| KEY TAKEAWAY |
| Life crafting treats purpose as a design problem rather than a discovery problem. Its seven evidence-basedcomponents, from values clarification through implementation intentions, draw on the strongest research in positive psychology and behaviour change. The key mechanism is linking values to specific goals and specific situations through implementation intentions, which bridge the gap between knowing what matters and acting on it consistently. Purpose emerges from engaged, values-directed action more than from reflection. |
Frequently Asked Questions
How is life crafting different from journalling?
Life crafting is structured where journalling is typically unstructured. The specific sequence of components, each building on the previous and drawing on distinct research traditions, produces effects that generic journalling does not. Implementation intentions specifically, the if-then plans that link purpose to specific situations, are the mechanism through which life crafting converts reflection into changed behaviour.
Who is life crafting designed for?
Schippers developed life crafting primarily in university student populations, where purpose confusion and identity development are particularly relevant. However, the framework draws on research applicable across adulthood. Research on job crafting, a related concept that applies similar principles to work specifically, has been studied across diverse professional populations with consistent positive results.
How long does a life crafting process take?
Schippers and Ziegler’s framework was designed as a structured workshop or self-guided process spanning several sessions rather than a single sitting. Research on positive psychology interventions suggests that exercises done repeatedly with genuine engagement produce more durable effects than single administrations. The implementation intentions stage in particular benefits from regular review and updating as circumstances change.
Is life crafting available as a formal programme?
The life crafting framework has been formalised into educational programmes at several European universities and is available in workbook format. The underlying components, including best possible self writing, values clarification exercises, and implementation intention planning, are available through multiple positive psychology resources. Schippers’ published framework provides sufficient structure for self-directed application.
What if the life I craft does not work out?
Research on life design by Burnett and Evans emphasises the iterative nature of life design: prototypes are tested, learning is integrated, and plans are revised. Life crafting is not a one-time exercise but a periodic practice that updates as circumstances, values, and strengths clarify through experience. The flexibility built into the framework treats plan revision as a feature rather than a failure.
