How to Turn Your Chatbot Into a Life Coach

Hello! We are back with another edition on On Tech: A.I. - a popup newsletter which teaches about artificial intelligence and how to use.

I showed you last week how to transform A.I. Personal shoppers can speed up the product research process. Let's now ask A.I. Try something more ambitious. Help us organize our lives and set goals to achieve those goals.

Chatbots such as Bard and ChatGPT are very good at completing these tasks. I'll show you how to ask a chatbot for an action plan, and have it help you create new habits. This includes adding your goals to your calendar and your to-do lists.

Pick a goal first! If you have a self-help guide with relevant advice, it's helpful. Let's say, for example, that you're interested in running a marathon. You've just finished reading the book titled 'Slow AF Run Club : The Ultimate Guide to Anyone Who Wants To Run'

Choose a chatbot. Since the book is relatively new, I will use Open AI ChatGPT as an example. Web browsing should be enabled in the settings. Try this prompt that I adapted, which is a database of ChatGPT questions and prompts.

I want you to act as a life coach. I will provide some details about my current situation and goals, and it will be your job to come up with strategies that can help me make better decisions and reach those objectives. This could involve offering advice on various topics, such as creating plans for achieving success or dealing with difficult emotions. My first request is: My goal this fall is to run a marathon. Come up with a three-month plan using the principles of the book 'Slow AF Run Club.'

ChatGPT will explain the book's premise -- that any person, regardless of their size or fitness level, can train to become a runner at their own pace -- and create a workout program using the principles in the book.

The chatbot may suggest that you start by walking four times a week for 30 minutes to become accustomed to the physical activity. In Month 2, the chatbot will tell you to continue walking but add jogging. In Month 3, you will be told to increase your total session time to 45 minutes and focus on jogging.

Next, you need to turn these ideas into habits. It's possible to manually add the workouts to your calendar. But what fun is that? You can use Zapier to connect ChatGPT with your Google Calendar. The chatbot will then automatically add these workout suggestions into your calendar.

Plug-ins are only available to subscribers who pay $20 per month for ChatGPT plus. Last week, we explained how to accomplish this.

Click 'add new action' in the Zapier Open AI menu once you've connected Zapier to ChatGPT. Type 'Google Calender - Quick Add Event' for the action. Click 'Enable Action' after you have completed the steps for connecting your Google Calendar account.

Return to ChatGPT once this has been done. Select the Zapier plug in and re-enter your prompt to ask the bot to become your life coach. After the bot has finished laying out your workout plan, you can type "add each workout to the calendar".

The bot will then look at your workout plan, and follow the instructions to automatically add each session to the calendar. Calendar events will be updated when you decide to extend the length of your runs.

It's pretty cool, but if your style is to make a list of things you need to do, this will be much easier. Tell your life coach you will share your to do list on a regular basis and you would like it to include these workouts in your list according to a proposed schedule.

As an example, I told the life coach I had to do a few things this week. I was going to rotate the tires on my car at Costco, call the health insurance provider about a claim and write copy for the newsletter this week. I also needed broccoli, as well as phone calls scheduled with various companies. The system automatically spread these tasks out over a week, and added the 30-minute walks.

Use these steps to achieve any goal in your life, such as saving for a home or preparing yourself to be promoted at work. Automation can help turn vague advice into an actionable plan.

After I asked for a running plan, I told my life coach I was overweight and out of shape after the pandemic. The chatbot reminded me that, based on the principles of the book, the goal is to run a marathon, not to lose weight, and to find joy in the process of running while removing shame. It encouraged me to join a community of runners, whether in real life or online in communities like Reddit or Strava. That felt like sound advice.

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