In Uncommon Candor, I dedicated an entire chapter to cultivating candor with ourselves – being honest about who we are and what is important to us. Being truthful with and about ourselves prompts us to examine our core principles, and requires that we hold ourselves accountable. Noble efforts if we are to lead a life that is authentically our own.

And – possibly most challenging – how exactly are we going to do that?

It’s an overwhelming concept to consider – stating a purpose that is truthfully most important to you and setting on a confident path to achieve it, regardless of someone else’s beliefs and in lieu of distractions by other less-meaningful, yet more urgent, tasks.

Well, there’s an app for that. Richmond, VA-based Die Happy is a company dedicated to helping people uncover their authentic lives. From their website:

That’s the essence of DieHappy.  A company that’s focused on creating tools that help you prioritize what’s most important to you in life (whatever that is!), enables you to easily plan to do things in those most important areas of life with the people who matter most, facilitates you actually being able to do them and helps you capture those moments you’re creating and celebrate them.  www.diehappy.com

Specifically, Die Happy is beta testing an app in which users can declare what they want to do, make a plan (and, using tools within the app, follow through on the plan), and capture the moments with photos and notes. Similar to an app for diet or fitness, except we’ll be tracking our own happiness and getting push notifications about our life plan.

There is no more important place to cultivate candor than with ourselves about who we are and what we want, that clarifies our own thinking, pushes us to be honest about what it will take, and holds us accountable.