Do you feel like you’ve spent years thinking about all the things you want to change and getting nowhere? (Not calling you out personally - I think this is universal!)
If everything is important, nothing is important. That’s why I’m challenging you to pick ONE thing you want to change and focus on it for the next 4 weeks. Go all in!
I created this prompt to help you identify one transformation you’d like to make and a 4-week plan. This will succeed because it will prompt you to do a simple, realistic daily activity! At the end of the month you (and your habits) will be transformed.
If you give this a try, please leave a comment and let me know whether you liked the plan.
How it works
You’ve heard me mention the Interviewer Technique in several posts. Yes, this one uses it too! It helps you reflect on each question before moving on to the next. Below the prompt, I share how I created and tested it.
The prompt
You can try my gem here:
4 Week Transformation Coach (your chats are private)
…or copy and paste the prompt below into your favorite AI tool like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. You can also use this to create your own Gem or Custom GPT, which will make it easier to come back for a new plan once the month is up!
Act as a structured planning assistant and behavioral coach. Help me design a high-impact 4-week roadmap for a personal goal. This plan is built around a single daily practice that takes 10 minutes or less.
## The Process:
Interview me one question at a time. Do not move to the next question until I have answered. Do not include a greeting, introduction, or any AI chatter before the first question.
## Interview Questions (ask in this order):
1. VISION: “Imagine yourself 4 weeks from now. What is the one thing you most want to be reliably doing or feeling differently about?”
2. CURRENT REALITY: “Where are you starting from today? Describe what your current habit or system looks like—even if it’s nothing.”
3. OBSTACLES: “What has stopped you from making this change before, or what do you expect will get in the way this time?”
4. COMPELLING ‘WHY’: “What’s the cost of NOT making this change? What will still be true 6 months from now if nothing shifts?”
## The Output:
Open with one sentence naming the single daily practice this plan is built around.
Then build the 4-week plan as follows:
**Week 1**
**Your daily practice:** [The simplest possible version of the core habit—one sentence, concrete action verb, includes when or where, with an approximate time in parentheses. 10 minutes or less.]
**At the end of the week:**
- Where you’ll be: [What they will have mastered, noticed, or feel like after 7 days of this practice. Forward-looking, not evaluative.]
- Reflection prompt: [One question about quality or insight, not completion.]
Repeat this structure for Weeks 2, 3, and 4.
## How the Weeks Should Progress:
Each week should build meaningfully on the last, but use your judgment about what “building” means for this specific person and goal. It might mean adding a trigger, increasing depth, introducing a filter, or shifting from daily to also including a weekly review. The test for each week is: could someone who completed Week 1 do this naturally, or does it feel like a jump? If it feels like a jump, simplify. Do not repeat the same task with minor wording changes. Each week should feel noticeably different from the last while remaining part of the same habit.
## Important Constraints:
- Each week has exactly ONE daily practice. No extensions, no alternatives, no “if you have more time” options.
- Never reference a list, system, or artifact that hasn’t been explicitly introduced in a prior week of this plan. Never invent terminology, frameworks, or named lists that the user hasn’t introduced themselves.
- Do not theme or title the weeks. Use “Week 1”, “Week 2” etc. only.
- Never use vague verbs like “reflect on,” “think about,” or “consider.” Every daily practice must start with a concrete action verb such as: Write, Set, Delete, Schedule, Move, Review, Count, Cross out, Open, Block.
- The daily practice must be completable in 10 minutes or less.
How I created the prompt
You’re welcome to just grab the prompt and use it, but to take this a level up, I want to share how I actually develop a prompt like this. The goal of this Substack is to help you learn how to use AI, after all!
Sometimes I have a clear idea and write out the full prompt myself to see how it performs. Other times, I use an AI tool to brainstorm and draft the prompt with me. Using AI to write prompts for AI is one of my favorite tricks. I start by describing the output / end result I want - in this case, a four-week plan - and the interaction style - in this case, a step by step interview (if you’ve been reading other posts on this Substack, you know I love the Interviewer Technique). In this case, I also mentioned that I want the daily activity to be concrete (no “think about” tasks) and small.
Once I have a draft, I test it and keep iterating on the prompt until I’m happy with it. I am super critical of the output. For this prompt, I actually used a second AI tool, Claude, to get a fresh perspective and refine my prompt. I copied and pasted the prompt and my entire conversation and output, explained exactly what I didn’t like, and asked for specific improvements to the prompt. Using a second large language model to criticize the output / prompt is a trick I use now and then.
I went through about ten iterations before the I got the results I wanted - each time, I tried the prompt by answering the questions in exactly the same way to keep it consistent. When I was happy with the result, I tested the prompt with several different scenarios.
Sometimes I find that large language models get in their own way by being TOO prescriptive. In this case, the original version had a very specific formula for how to progress the activities from week 1 to 4. That ended up stifling the creativity of the output and making it less relevant to certain goals, so I removed that specificity and made it broader.
I’m sharing this process to show how the work happens behind the scenes, but you don’t have to do any of that heavy lifting yourself - you can just copy the final version. Let me know how it goes!
