I have a therapist. I have an executive coach. Yet I still make terrible decisions at 6am after a bad night's sleep. So last week, my bff Claude and I built something that catches me before I do.

Here's how.

The problem I was trying to solve:

I've had therapists, I've had coaches,I've listened to alllllll the podcasts and read all the books. I've done the work, or at least, I've been very very good at talking about doing the work.

And because of that, heres a few of the things I know about myself: I'm articulate, I can explain my patterns with pretty impressive clarity. I can name the thing I'm doing wrong, describe why I'm doing it, reference the relevant context, and then do it anyway. I know therapy lingo. My therapists have largely validated me. "Objectively, Taryn, your life is hard." Yes. Thank you. That is not helping.

What I actually needed was something that wouldn't be charmed by my self-awareness. Something that would notice when I was performing insight instead of actually changing.

I also needed it available at odd hours, not every 3rd Tuesday, and I wanted it to have context of what actually happened.. Not just what I said happed, or what I claimed to have written in that email or text…

The mechanic:

Claude Projects has persistent memory across conversations, which means you can build something that genuinely knows you over time, not just in one session, but across weeks and months. Hot tip: download Whispr Flow if you're not already using it, as this requires a sh*t tonne of input, and your fingers will thank me for it.

Step 1: The intake dump

Open a Claude Project and tell it everything. Not the sanitised version of your life, the actual version.

Ask yourself, and answer honestly:

What are the spirals I keep landing in?
Where do I consistently self-sabotage or go too slow or too fast?
How do I actually behave when things get hard? Not how I wish I did.
Who do I want to become in the next two to three years, and what's the gap between that and who I am today?
What does my perfect life actually look like, in specific detail?
What am I navigating right now that's live and messy?

I talked about selling The Right Fit and the legal palaver with Gifted that followed, and how burnt out I was afterwards. About not wanting to be a founder again but also not wanting a job, but something that gave me meaning and purpose without being all-consuming. About circling ideas endlessly without committing to any of them.

I talked about how I handle pressure at work: I spot a problem, I go into total control mode, not taking people on a journey. I tell myself it's faster that way, that I'm being systematic. What I'm actually doing is avoiding the direct conversation I'm too uncomfortable to have.

I talked about relationships. Ending my engagement. My messy current relationship. About the pattern I keep repeating, not walking away when I should, going back when I shouldn't.

I talked about what my ideal ‘Perfect Tuesday” actually looks like. Ocean breeze.. Morning Pilates. Work that stimulates without consuming me. A real partnership, in sync, sympatico. Simplicity. Joy. Purpose.

The more honest you are here, the more useful everything that follows becomes.

Step 1b: Feed it real evidence

This is the one I think makes the biggest difference.

Your intake tells Claude your patterns in your words, which is useful. But raw correspondence shows it how you actually behave in the moment, which is often quite different from how you'd describe yourself…. Reading my whatsapp diatribes back confirms that

Export your WhatsApp threads with the people who matter most: the partner, the best friend, the colleague you find hardest. Get it to pull in the emails (if you use the gmail connection, otherwise copy/paste or download by contact name) where you went into control mode, or where you said you were done and then weren't. Drop in old journal entries, voice memos, brain dumps you've never shown anyone. The notes section of my phone was a treasure trove…!

The less edited the better, claude isn't judging you. Or maybe it is, but I figure itll take sympathy on me in the AGI apocalypse. Or keep a wide berth, lol..

I added message threads, emails, a "perfect Tuesday" I'd written years ago about what I actually wanted my life to look like. Things I'd never shared in a therapy session because you only have an hour and this is like hundreds of hours of content.

And you can keep adding as things happen. Paste a difficult conversation before a session and say "read this first." Drop in a voice memo when something blows up. The coach gets sharper every time you feed it.

Step 2: Pattern analysis

Once the dump is in, ask Claude something like: "Read everything I've shared and analyse my patterns through the lens of real coaching frameworks. Tag each pattern with the framework that best applies, and explain why."

What came back for me wasn't generic advice. It was a (very confronting) map of my specific patterns, each tagged to a framework.

The frameworks Claude pulled for me: Marshall Goldsmith on triggers and behaviour. Phil Stutz on the tools, Reversal of Desire, Active Love, Inner Authority. Tim Gallwey on the inner game. Susan David on emotional agility. Adam Grant on holding identity loosely. Esther Perel on desire and intimacy. Bessel van der Kolk on how the body holds stress before the mind catches up. Harriet Lerner on why high-functioning women avoid direct conflict and what it costs them. Byron Katie on the stories we tell ourselves about money and worth.

For example: the work spiral isn't a strategy problem. It's an identity problem. I over-indexed my whole sense of self on being a founder. Then I successfully exited… now what?. Now I'm circling because I haven't built a new identity to act from. Every decision feels both compelling and wrong because I'm trying to pick actions before I've decided who I'm becoming.

That's an Adam Grant frame. Far more useful to me than any amount of "have you considered a portfolio career?"

Step 3: Operating principles

Ask Claude: "Based on my patterns, write me a set of operating principles for how you should coach me. These should be rules of engagement, each one downstream of a specific pattern you've identified."

Read the draft. Cut the ones that don't feel like you and sharpen the ones that almost do. Add what's missing.

I ended up with 28. A few of mine:

Circular thinking is avoidance with better branding. Call it out.
When I'm charming and self-deprecating about a problem, I'm probably deflecting. Push through it.
Intimacy is not evidence of alignment. A good Friday does not change a Sunday pattern.
Insight without behaviour change is just entertainment. If I've named this pattern before and nothing's shifted, say so.
Ask me what I'm not saying.

That last one gets used a lot…

Step 4: Tactical tools

Ask Claude: "Based on my patterns and operating principles, what tactical tools should we build for specific moments? Design them for the situations where I'm most at risk."

On top of the coaching foundations, I built six (so far):

A daily check-out, six questions every night that track whether I made real progress, whether I said the thing I needed to say, whether I connected with someone properly or just communicated, whether I reacted or responded. (It also helped me build a standalone webpage and recurring reminder for this, but the widget gave me grief and so for now I'm just typing answers in each night)
A hard conversation prep tool, which strips any charged conversation back to the real ask, the three things that must land, and the walk away line.
A work clarity session that doesn't help me evaluate my options. It goes underneath them to the identity question, which is designed to break the loop not extend it.
A weekly reflection for Sunday mornings - havent got through a few week yet to use this one…

What it actually feels like to use

Honest answer: confronting.

It doesn't let me talk around things, and it notices when I'm performing self awareness instead of actually being held accountable. It references my specific patterns, not generic coaching wisdom, not Pinterest quotes, my actual documented history of what I do and why its maybe not so great…

I'm nearly a week in, I don't have a perfect conclusion about whether it's changed me yet. Its certainly making me more self aware, and the data over time will be pretty amazing im sure. (Also I know I joke about this but its true, when people ask where these models get their training data from, the answer is ME. im literally over here uploading my whole life and medical records and deepest inner thoughts. Youre welcome)

Its first time I've had something available like this in real time, not booked for next Tuesday, not asleep, not reasonably unavailable at midnight. Right there, knowing all the gory details, asking the question I don't want to answer.

If you want to build one:

You need Claude Pro and then just start a Project, which is the feature that gives it persistent memory across sessions.

Start with the intake, and you've got to be really really honest. The frameworks and principles follow from whatever raw material you put in, so if you're curated in the intake, you'll get curated coaching back. It only works if you tell the whole, messy, awkward truth.

I built mine in probably a solid 5hr sprint. Id hazard to say it'll probably be the most useful afternoon I've had in a while….