Tools & Resources
and decide, and write
Free reflection guides, decision frameworks, and story exercises drawn from coaching practice. Whether you're 17 navigating college or 55 reimagining what's next — these tools are for you. Use them on your own, bring them to a session, or share them with someone who needs them.
Featured Worksheet
生き甲斐
Ikigai — your reason for being
"What is your
reason for being?"
Identity & Purpose Free
The Japanese concept of ikigai — your reason for being — sits at the intersection of four things: what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. This guided worksheet walks you through each quadrant with specific prompts designed for people at inflection points.
Want to work through this with someone who's done it herself? Book a free discovery call.
Decision-MakingFree
When you're facing a major change, the noise in your head makes it impossible to think clearly. This framework structures the decision across four dimensions: values alignment, practical feasibility, identity fit, and regret minimization.
Stuck on a decision and need a thinking partner? Book a free call.
Story & NarrativeFree
For making sense of your past. Most people can't see the thread connecting their seemingly unrelated experiences. This guide helps you map your timeline, identify recurring themes, and find the through-line that makes your story coherent — even when it hasn't felt that way.
Career & PivotFree
Before you decide what to do next, you need to know what actually matters to you — not what you've been told should matter. This audit walks through 30 career values with a ranking system that reveals what you've been optimizing for vs. what you actually want.
Personal StatementFree
Most personal statements fail because they list accomplishments instead of telling a story. This worksheet guides you through the narrative architecture of a compelling personal statement — the inciting moment, the transformation, and the forward vision.
Need narrative coaching, not just editing? Work with Lauren directly.
Identity & PurposeFree
For understanding who you are right now. Who are you when you strip away the titles, roles, and expectations? This reflection guide explores your present-self — values, character strengths, and the parts of yourself that have stayed consistent through every change.
Identity & LeadershipFree
Confidence isn't the problem. This worksheet helps you identify the inherited rules and double-bind expectations you've been navigating — and start replacing them with self-authored ones. Based on research on women in leadership.
Decision-MakingFree
For athletes at a crossroads. This guide walks through the real questions — identity, passion, pressure, and future — to help you figure out what you actually want, separate from what others expect of you.
Career & PivotComing Soon
A 12-week guided planner for people actively navigating a career transition. Weekly prompts, reflection exercises, and milestone tracking — the companion to 1:1 coaching or a standalone tool for self-directed work.
Be first to know when it's ready.
The framework behind the work
Ikigai
your reason for being
Most people are optimizing for one or two of these. The coaching work is finding the intersection — and having the courage to move toward it.
Worth reading
A selection of books relevant to career transitions, identity, purpose, and the art of narrative. Available on Amazon. (As an Amazon Associate, laurenfine.com earns from qualifying purchases.)
Book · Burnett & Evans
A New York Times bestseller that applies design thinking principles to building a meaningful career and life. Developed from a popular Stanford course, it offers practical frameworks for exploring multiple possible futures.
Book · William Bridges
A classic text on navigating life's changes, now in its 40th anniversary edition. Bridges maps the three stages of any transition — endings, the neutral zone, and new beginnings — and explains why change and transition are not the same thing.
Book · García & Miralles
An international bestseller exploring the Japanese concept of ikigai — your reason for being — through interviews with the world's longest-living people. A practical and accessible introduction to living with purpose.
Book · Jenny Blake
A career change guide built around the idea of small, strategic moves rather than dramatic leaps. Blake, a former Google career development specialist, offers a four-stage framework for making your next professional move.
Book · Viktor Frankl
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's account of surviving Nazi concentration camps and the psychological theory of logotherapy he developed from that experience. One of the most influential books on human purpose ever written.
Book · Robert McKee
The definitive guide to narrative structure, used by screenwriters, novelists, and storytellers worldwide. McKee's framework for understanding how stories work applies well beyond filmmaking to any situation requiring compelling communication.
I add new worksheets and resources when I build something genuinely useful in coaching practice. Subscribe and you'll get them first — along with essays on pivots, purpose, and the stories we tell ourselves.