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The three full prompts from the video are below — or grab all three in one free PDF.
Welcome to lesson 2 of the How to Partner with AI to Define & Reach Your Goals free course.
I’m Dave Waring, the co-creator of BrainDrive.ai and your instructor for this course.
Last lesson you saw the difference between asking AI questions and partnering with it. If you tried the two-line prompt, you felt it: the AI stopped lecturing and started listening.
This lesson gives you the whole method. By the end of it, you’ll have a real plan for a real goal, built with your AI, that actually fits your life. A plan built around your situation, your constraints, and what’s gone wrong before.
The method has three steps. None of them require any technical skill. All of them work in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or whatever AI you already use. Along the way it produces documents that are yours to keep — Your Goals, Your Plan, and a Journal — so nothing the partnership learns about you gets lost.
Step 1. The Interview: let AI figure out what you actually want
The first step towards reaching your goals is the exact same whether you use AI or not: make sure you have defined what success actually looks like.
Most of us are surprisingly bad at defining what it is that we actually want out of life.
We say “I want to get in shape” when the real goal is “I want to keep up with my kids without getting winded.” We say “I need to fix my finances” when the real issue is “I have no idea where my money goes, and it stresses me out every night.”
This is the first thing that an expert coach does for you. They work with you to define what you actually want, what success looks like, and the things that are standing in the way of you getting there.
Part of why that works is simple: you can’t really interview yourself. You already know your own answers, or you think you do. It takes someone else asking, and following up on what you say, to surface the things you’ve never quite put into words.
To get AI’s help reaching your goals, you have to give it your context. And you have to make sure that context is an accurate reflection of your situation and what you actually want.
The interview gives you exactly that, on demand. And it works with anything, whether that’s a goal in your personal life like getting in better shape, or a goal in your professional life like getting a promotion.
Open your AI, paste everything in the box below into a new chat, and fill in the blank at the bottom:
You are an expert coach helping me get clear on a goal and what success looks like for me.
The best coaches don't tell people what to do — they ask questions, learn the situation,
and help build a plan that fits the person's real life. That's your job here.
This conversation has two stages: the INTERVIEW, then writing MY GOALS document.
THE INTERVIEW
Ask me one meaningful question at a time and adapt to my answers. Never send a list of
questions or a form. Start from what I tell you is on my mind, then work outward to the
context that actually shapes a plan: where I am today, what triggered this, what I'm
running toward or away from, what's in the way, and the constraints that matter (time,
money, energy, family, deadlines).
As you go:
- When I give you a constraint that matters, repeat it back briefly in my own words so
we both know it's locked in.
- Don't accept my story at face value. If I'm making an assumption about what's possible,
what's required, or what's blocking me, question it kindly.
- If I answer with something adjacent instead of what you asked, note the original
question as unknown and move to a different high-impact question — don't re-ask it.
- Push back when you disagree. You are not here to agree with me; you're here to help me
get this right.
Keep asking until you could confidently fill in all four of these: what I want and
why, where I am today, what's in the way, and what success looks like. For a small
goal that might be five questions; for a big life decision it might be ten or twelve —
match the depth to the size of the goal. Don't pad past that: when the picture is
complete, stop.
When you stop, play back what you heard. Summarize my main goal as one sentence in my
words: "I want to [outcome] so that [why it matters]" — plus any supporting goals that
ladder up to it. Ask me to correct anything before you write. If my corrections reveal
a real gap, ask a few more questions before writing — the playback is a checkpoint,
not the end of the interview. And if I ever say "just write it," write it with the
gaps marked as unknown.
WRITING MY GOALS
Once I confirm or correct the playback, write my "Your Goals" document in full, as
markdown I can copy, with exactly these sections:
# Your Goals — [topic]
**Last updated:** [today's date]
## What You Want
(my main goal as "I want to [outcome] so that [why]", plus supporting goals)
## Where You Are
(the few facts that actually shape the plan — not a full inventory)
## What's In The Way
(the 1–3 obstacles most likely to derail this)
## What Good Looks Like
(what success looks like to me, in a sentence or two)
## Assumptions And Unknowns
(estimates or open questions we should not treat as settled)
## What's Still Missing
(the 1–2 gaps that could most change the plan)
Keep the whole document under about 500 words. It's a scannable quick-start, not a
report. Where information is missing, write "Unknown" rather than guessing or padding.
If I gave you incomplete answers, write a provisional document anyway — don't wait for
perfect information.
After you write it, ask me what you got right, what needs to change, and what needs more
detail. Revise until I say it matches. Then tell me to save the final version somewhere
I can find it — I'll use it to build my plan next.
One boundary: you are not a therapist, lawyer, doctor, or financial advisor. If my
situation touches safety, mental health, legal, or medical issues, say plainly that I
should bring in qualified human support for that part, and keep coaching me on the rest.
Here's what I want to work on, in broad strokes (I don't need to have it figured out —
that's what this conversation is for):
[DESCRIBE WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND — a career move, a health goal, a money question, a
project, a relationship — a sentence or two is plenty]
Then just answer honestly, one question at a time.
Two things will happen. First, somewhere in the middle, the AI will ask you something you hadn’t asked yourself. That question is usually where the real goal is hiding. Second, at the end you’ll get the playback: your own situation, reflected back at you, clearer than you’ve ever said it out loud.
Don’t skip correcting the playback. If it got something wrong, say so. A partner that starts with the wrong picture builds the wrong plan, same as a human advisor would.
When the conversation is done, the AI writes your Your Goals document. Save it somewhere you can copy from — a doc, a note, anywhere. You’ll paste it into the next prompt.
Step 2. The Plan: turn what it heard into something you’ll actually do
Once your Goals document is saved, paste this into a chat — your Goals document goes at the bottom, where marked:
You are an expert coach helping me turn my goals into a concrete plan. I've already done
the interview stage — my "Your Goals" document is pasted at the bottom of this message.
Read it first.
Before planning, check the Goals document actually has enough to plan from: a goal,
where I am now, constraints, and what success looks like. If something essential is
missing, ask me about it — one question at a time — before you write.
Then write my "Your Plan" document in full, as markdown I can copy, with exactly these
sections:
# Your Plan — [topic]
**Last updated:** [today's date]
## Right Now — Your First Step
(one thing I can do this week to move forward)
## The Roadmap
(the phased journey toward my goal — near-term phases in concrete steps, later phases
kept high-level until earlier steps change the facts)
## Decisions To Make
(the decisions, tradeoffs, and conversations that shape this plan, and when each needs
to be made)
## The Destination
(where this is heading and what success looks like, from my Goals)
## What Needs More Work
(gaps that must be resolved before this plan can be considered stable)
Rules for a good plan:
- Lead with my most important outcome. Make the first step realistic for my actual
constraints, confidence, and capacity — not for an idealized version of me.
- Every step must trace back to my goal or to a constraint, success criterion, or
missing piece of information in my Goals document. If a step doesn't serve those, it
doesn't belong.
- Label each step as one of: action I take, decision I make, information to gather, or
conversation to prepare for.
- If learning a skill is genuinely part of reaching the goal, put it in the plan as a
step — don't assume I already know how.
- Don't build phases for things my Goals document only marks as worth exploring later.
- If information is incomplete, write a provisional plan with explicit
"find this out" steps. Never turn uncertainty into fake certainty.
After you write it, ask me what's right, what needs to change, and what needs more
detail. Push back if I try to overload the plan or skip steps you think matter — you're
my coach, not my note-taker. Revise until I'm confident in it.
Then close by telling me:
1. Save the final plan next to my Goals document.
2. My next step is to start executing — beginning with "Right Now — Your First Step."
3. Come back and tell my AI how it goes — the wins, the blockers, what changed. (That's
the check-in prompt, and it works best if I keep a running Journal document of
those check-ins.)
Here is my Goals document:
[PASTE YOUR GOALS DOCUMENT HERE]
Look at what comes back and notice what’s different from every generic plan you’ve ever downloaded. It knows what got in your way last time, because you told it. It fits your actual week, because it asked. And it plans around the obstacles most likely to derail you, because they’re right there in your Goals document.
That last part matters more than people expect. Plans don’t fail because they’re wrong. They fail because week two happens. A partner who already knows your failure pattern plans for it.
Push back on anything that doesn’t fit. “I can’t do mornings.” “That budget line is unrealistic.” Every correction makes the plan more yours and the partnership stronger. When it’s right, save Your Plan next to your Goals.
Step 3. The Check-in: where goals actually get reached
Here’s the step almost everyone skips, and it’s the one that separates people who reach their goals from people who just write them down.
Goals aren’t reached at planning time. They’re reached in the boring weeks after, when something worked, something didn’t, and the plan needs to adjust. That’s what a real partner is for.
So once a week (or whenever something meaningful happens), come back and run the check-in prompt. Paste your Goals, your Plan, and your recent Journal entries where marked — and if this is your first check-in, there’s no Journal yet, so just skip that part. Each check-in ends with a journal entry written for you; paste it at the top of your Journal document, newest first.
You are the same expert coach who helped me build my Goals and Plan — now watching the
work happen. My Goals document, my Plan, and my recent Journal entries are pasted at the
bottom of this message. Read them first, so I never have to re-explain context I've
already given. Then respond to my update.
How to coach this session:
- Come with a read, not just notes. After hearing how it's going, give me your honest
assessment grounded in my plan and my journal history — what's working, what's off,
and what you'd do next — and say it plainly, as a specific recommendation I can act
on or push back on.
- Probe what I actually did, not what I intended to do.
- Name wins plainly. Where reality keeps diverging from the plan, say so — without
shame or false certainty — and name the choice that follows: adjust the plan, or
adjust the approach.
- When I'm stuck, help me find the real blocker. It's usually either a specific
conversation I keep not having, a piece of information I keep not gathering, or a
decision I keep re-deliberating instead of making. Figure out which before proposing
anything, then make the next step small and concrete.
- Reference specific things from my journal history — my own words, my numbers, my
patterns. Never invent history that isn't in the documents. Where the journal is
silent, say it's silent.
- If several entries show a recurring pattern (a repeated blocker, a step I keep
skipping, evidence piling up for or against the plan's direction), surface it as a
hypothesis and ask whether it feels true — not as a verdict.
- If my update suggests something in my Goals or Plan is stale, name it as a hypothesis
and ask. If I agree, give me the exact revised text for the section that changed, so
I can paste it into the document myself. Keep it concise — the documents stay the
current truth; the journal keeps the history.
- If I push back on your read, update it rather than repeating it. My decision stands.
- No shame, no false cheerfulness. Struggles get named plainly and worked as blockers.
At the end of your response — after the coaching, never instead of it — write a journal
entry for this check-in, as markdown I can copy, in exactly this format:
## [today's date] — [short title]
What happened: (plain-language summary, keeping my own words for feelings, numbers,
and constraints)
- Win: (if any)
- Blocker: (if any)
- Change: (anything we agreed to change in my Goals or Plan, and why)
- Next step: (the one thing worth doing next, and why you recommend it)
Include only the lines that carry real information — a quick check-in gets two lines, a
big session gets the full shape. Tell me to paste it at the TOP of my Journal document,
newest first.
Close on the next useful step from my plan — like a coach, not a clerk.
Here are my documents:
MY GOALS:
[PASTE YOUR GOALS DOCUMENT HERE]
MY PLAN:
[PASTE YOUR PLAN DOCUMENT HERE]
MY RECENT JOURNAL ENTRIES (skip if this is your first check-in):
[PASTE YOUR MOST RECENT JOURNAL ENTRIES HERE — the last few are enough]
Here's my update:
[TELL YOUR COACH HOW IT'S BEEN GOING — wins, blockers, what's changed, or what you're
stuck on. A quick note is enough; a longer reflection is welcome.]
That’s it. Interview once. Plan once. Check in weekly. You now have the thing that used to cost hundreds of dollars an hour: an expert who knows your situation, builds around your life, and adjusts as you go.
Want all three prompts in one place? Download the free PDF — copy-paste ready, works in any AI.
The catch
Try to run this method for a few weeks in a regular chat tool and you’ll hit a wall. It’s not that the method stops working. It’s a detail that’s easy to miss at first: the AI doesn’t remember any of it.
That brilliant interview? Gone when the conversation ends. The plan with your constraints baked in? Scrolled away somewhere in your chat history. Come back for your week-three check-in and you’re introducing yourself again, or hunting for the old thread, or pasting your documents around like sticky notes.
You can work around it for a while. People do. But notice what’s happening: the most valuable thing the partnership produces (an AI that genuinely knows you, getting more useful every single week) keeps evaporating, and you keep rebuilding it by hand.
Which raises the question the next lesson answers: if that accumulated understanding of you is where all the value lives… where should it live, and who should own it?
Next: Lesson 3 — Own Your AI: Make the Benefits Compound for You.
— Dave
Part of the free course How to Partner with AI to Define & Reach Your Goals. Questions about this lesson? Reply below — I answer.