Start where you are
You do not need a life plan or a commitment to change before answering the first six questions.
About Telos · James Gough
A practical method. A real person to guide you.
James Gough created Telos around a familiar question: why do we keep putting off things that genuinely matter to us?
His answer starts small: ask better questions, make the action easier and work with the thoughts and feelings that get in the way.
Experience behind the teaching
From knowing what to do to actually doing it.
James’s work has spanned sales, sales training, management, digital marketing, customer systems, software and automation. Alongside that work, he has spent decades studying and practising approaches to motivation, behaviour and personal development.
The same challenge kept appearing: knowing the next step does not make it easy to take. More information is not always the missing ingredient.
Telos brings useful exercises together across thoughts, emotions and actions. James’s role is to make them understandable and guide their practical use—not to claim he invented every technique.
Creator, author and guide
- Creator of the Telos Method and its course.
- Author of The Telos Method.
- Author of The Weight Loss Habit (2020), an earlier application of the ideas.
- Leads guided Telos programmes for individuals and groups.
Personal practice, not just theory
A method James has used in his own life.
James used the Daily Questions for years, returning to them at different points and adding questions relevant to his own priorities. His addition, “since I last scored myself”, makes it possible to check in more than once a day.
He describes noticing a difference within days and becoming more focused. He has also used the wider exercises around learning, fitness, career decisions and personal goals—including learning to programme software in his fifties.
These are James’s personal experiences, not a promise that someone else will have the same results.
“I started to notice a difference within a few days. It changed my life completely.”
James Gough, on his own experience of the Daily QuestionsWhat you can expect
Simple questions. Clear explanations. No pressure to perform.
One really means one
A Microgoal is deliberately tiny. At first, do only that and stop. Confidence and repetition come before volume.
Your reflections are yours
You choose what to discuss. Private workbook writing is not a requirement for participation or employer reporting.
Research and practical experience
Clear about what the evidence does—and does not—show.
Telos draws on work by Marshall Goldsmith, James Prochaska, Carlo DiClemente, James Pennebaker and other researchers. We explain the relevant findings beside the exercises and link to their sources.
Research on individual practices does not establish a success rate for the complete Telos Method or mean those researchers endorse it.
Explore the evidenceEducational, non-clinical support
James teaches Telos as a practical educational method, not as a clinical psychologist or medical professional. It is not therapy or a replacement for appropriate healthcare.
Telos is a trading brand of Project Intel Ltd, registered in Scotland, company number SC899679.
hello@teloshealth.co.ukTry it for yourself
You do not have to take a course to begin.
The six Daily Questions, graphs and history are free.