01
Answer the six questions
Start with happiness, meaning, engagement, relationships and goals. Score your effort since you last scored yourself. No promise to change is needed.
See the questions →The Telos Method
Small questions. Tiny actions. A different way to follow through.
Begin with six honest questions about your life. You do not need a goal or a promise to change first. The wider method connects thoughts, feelings and actions through nine practical exercises.
People often assume that failure to follow through means they are lazy, undisciplined or insufficiently motivated. That explanation is usually too simple.
A behaviour may matter to you, but still feel difficult, distant, uncomfortable or easy to postpone. Immediate rewards may compete with longer-term benefits. You may rely on ideal conditions or repeat the same internal arguments each time you abandon it.
The Telos Method helps you examine those influences through simple questions and optional exercises. Answering honestly is enough to begin; you are not asked to promise a life change.
The four foundations
Take the pressure off. Make it easy to begin.
Daily Questions are the starting practice. Add one Microgoal when you are ready, then build your reasons and responses a little at a time. Not four demanding new routines.
02
Choose one Microgoal
When you want to add an action, make it tiny: one sentence, one press-up or one item put away. Do only that, then stop. You are building the habit, not the quantity.
Make it easy to win →03
Build your reasons
Write two personally meaningful reasons at a sitting, working towards 100. Go beyond what sounds good to what genuinely matters to you.
Try a course prompt →04
Smash the excuses
Write down the thoughts that keep stopping you. Prepare a believable if–then response for each, connected to a reason and your tiny action.
See an example →Four practical questions
Look at the behaviour from more than one angle.
These questions broadly reflect the course’s use of Expectancy, Value, Impulsiveness and Delay. They are not four separate problems. They interact.
Do I believe I can do this?
Clearer planning, smaller actions, evidence of progress and repeated completion can make beginning and persisting more likely.
Does it matter enough?
Telos helps clarify the practical, emotional and personal reasons for continuing when distant benefits compete with immediate rewards.
What pulls me away?
Notice discomfort, avoidance, competing rewards, environmental cues and familiar explanations before they decide for you.
Why is it easy to postpone?
Make the next action smaller, more specific and more immediate when the task feels too large or unclear.
The nine exercises
Think. Feel. Act.
Each exercise addresses a different part of the knowing-doing gap. Together they make up the Telos Method.
Part One: Thoughts
- Active Questions
- Reasons to Succeed
- Smash the Excuses
Part Two: Emotions
- Submodalities
- Emotion Download
- Sensory Affirmations
Part Three: Actions
- Microgoals
- Goal Setting
- Visualisation
01
Active Questions
Replace passive judgement with purposeful self-examination. Instead of asking only “Did I complete it?”, ask what effort you made to complete the action you had agreed. This keeps attention on controllable behaviour rather than outcomes that depend on other people or circumstances.
Research connection: Goldsmith’s ten-day survey: 91% reported improvement in at least one area; self-reported, without a control group. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
02
Reasons to Succeed
Begin with two reasons that matter to you. Keep adding two at a sitting, working towards 100 personally meaningful reasons. The purpose is not empty motivational language; it is to understand why this behaviour deserves a meaningful place among competing priorities.
Research connection: Prochaska’s research across 12 behaviours connects readiness with the perceived benefits and drawbacks of change. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
03
Smash the Excuses
Record the explanations you actually use, distinguish genuine obstacles from avoidance and develop a more useful response. The aim is not to silence every concern or force unsuitable action.
Research connection: Experiments on reappraisal and if–then planning support related elements, not a tested Telos success rate. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
04
Submodalities
Notice the internal images, sounds, sensations, tastes and smells attached to an emotion and experiment with changing their qualities.
Research connection: Three small studies found that imagining unpleasant scenes shrinking and moving away generally reduced their emotional impact; the full Telos sequence was not tested. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
05
Emotion Download
Write continuously for 15–20 minutes about your deepest thoughts and feelings concerning an emotionally important experience.
Research connection: A 31-study review found small average symptom reductions following expressive writing, with varied results across research. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
06
Sensory Affirmations
Imagine and step into a version of yourself experiencing the state you want, then repeat or use the stationary multiple-self version.
Research connection: Related imagery research supports exploring immediate feeling; Telos’s multiple-selves sequence has no verified direct efficacy statistic. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
07
Microgoals
Create a deliberately small version of the behaviour: easy to begin, clearly defined, connected to a time, place or cue, and small enough to remain genuinely manageable. One repetition or one sentence is the whole task. At first do only that, then stop. Keep it tiny for as long as useful; habit and confidence come before quantity.
Research connection: Habit and cue-planning research supports repetition; it does not prove that a tiny action must grow into a bigger routine. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
08
Goal Setting
Turn a broad intention into a clearly defined action, appropriate frequency, time or cue, minimum version, measure and review point.
Research connection: A review of 141 papers found a positive average effect of goal setting on behaviour. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
09
Visualisation
Practise positive and negative visualisation, consider what may interfere and prepare a practical if–then response.
Research connection: A 21-study review supports mental contrasting plus if–then plans; it did not test the complete Telos script. Meet the researchers and read the finding →
How it works together
A repeatable follow-through process.
Question
Begin with the six Daily Questions. No goal required.
Choose
When ready, add one tiny Microgoal. Do only that and stop.
Observe
Establish what happens now without moral judgement.
Understand
Examine expectations, reasons, distractions and delays.
Reduce
Create a minimum version that is easier to begin.
Prepare
Plan for circumstances most likely to interrupt you.
Act
Perform the behaviour at the agreed time or cue.
Report
Record whether it happened.
Adjust
Use the pattern to improve the plan.
Repeat
Continue until the behaviour becomes more reliable or you make an informed change.
Why this approach is worth trying
The research, made practical.
The difference between an intention and a practice