Clarity Mapping
Five morning questions that rebuild purpose when your identity gets taken from you.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 95%
Clarity Mapping is a five-question daily practice Ashley Lemieux built after losing the two children she was raising, when her role as a mother — and with it her reason to get out of bed — disappeared overnight. It started with a single question each morning, 'What is my intention today?', because today was the only horizon she could handle. It grew into five questions covering intention, worthiness, service, release, and authenticity. The purpose is to generate enough clarity to create tangible steps forward, rather than waiting for motivation to reappear. She now runs it with high-level women entrepreneurs to navigate pivots where the next move is unknown.
Origin
After a contested adoption ended with Lemieux losing the two children she and her husband had raised for four years, she moved cities, then fled to Europe for two months trying to outrun the grief. When neither worked, she found herself in bed with no reason to get up — no one to feed, bathe, or tuck in — and started asking herself one question every morning: what is my intention today? Four more questions accreted around it, and the practice became Clarity Mapping.
Core principles
- 01When the role that defined you disappears, direction has to be rebuilt daily, not annually.
- 02Today is the only unit of time you can act on when you are in acute grief.
- 03Purpose is a question you answer, not a state you wait for.
- 04Authenticity beats optimisation — the truest version, not the best version.
- 05Clarity precedes strategy; you cannot plan your way out of not knowing who you are.
How to run it
- 1
Set the intention
Ask 'What is my intention today?' Focus only on today — not the year, not the recovery, just the next waking hours.
Pro tip Start here alone if five questions feels like too much. This was the original single question.
- 2
Establish worthiness
Ask 'Why am I worthy?' This pre-empts the self-sabotage that shows up when life starts going well again and you feel undeserving of it.
Watch out People afraid of feeling good again will quietly wreck their own progress if this question is skipped.
- 3
Choose who you serve
Ask 'Who can I serve today?' The honest answer is sometimes yourself — check whether your own needs are being met before scanning outward to employees, partner, or a stranger.
Pro tip Use this as a relationship check-in prompt: when did you last check in with your partner or your team?
- 4
Set something down
Ask 'What can I set down today?' Name one piece of heaviness — a fear, a responsibility outside your control, a sadness — and put it down for the day to free energy for everything else.
- 5
Show up as the truest version
Ask 'How does the truest version of me show up today?' Deliberately not 'the best version' — best changes depending on which role you are performing.
Pro tip If your answer shifts based on the audience, you are answering the wrong question.
Watch out Answering 'best version' makes your day a response to what you think others want from you.
- 6
Convert to a tangible step
Turn the answers into at least one concrete forward action, so the practice builds something rather than only describing your state.
In the wild
Lemieux had no reason to leave her bed — her business ran without her and the daily parenting duties that structured her life were gone. She started answering 'what is my intention today?' each morning, then expanded to five questions, using them to generate small tangible steps forward.
→ The practice restored enough direction to rebuild — including the intentional four-year runway before trying to grow her family again, and the decision to pursue a master's in grief and bereavement.
Common mistakes
Asking 'best version' instead of 'truest version'
The 'best version' question forces you to pick a role first — best mom, best employer, best partner — so your answer becomes what you assume others want from you rather than who you actually are.
Waiting for clarity before starting
The practice generates clarity; it doesn't require it. Lemieux began with no idea what she wanted, only one question.
Treating it as a one-off exercise
It is a daily practice. The point is the accumulation of small directional steps, not a single insight session.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and high achievers in a season of identity loss, pivot, or grief who cannot see a next step.
Not ideal for
People who need clinical trauma treatment — this is a clarity practice, not therapy.
From the transcript
“I have to figure out what my intention for my life is now. And so I started with one simple question every single morning. And…”
“It became a series of five questions that I answered every single day to help give me purpose and direction and clarity on who I…”
“I used to ask myself, how does the best version of me show up today? But then I realized I would change my answer based…”
From the episode
Ashley Lemieux: How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Loss, Heal, and Build a Thriving Business
Ashley Lemieux