A Pathless Remix

Design Three Lives

Odyssey Plans from Designing Your Life

Designing Your Life was such an inspiring book early on my journey, and its idea of coming up with Odyssey plans has been something I have used in my own journey. I think the biggest value has been in writing down things that were a little bit scary.

When I was first starting in my journey, I put something down like writing a book, and looking back, it sort of seems inevitable that I would have written a book, but when I wrote it down, it was definitely a bit scary.

And so every time I do an exercise like this, I try to get even bolder, and the first two are about straightforward dreams, but then the third is like the wild card one: What if there were no limits? What if no one laughed at you?

— Paul

Three lives

Designing Your Life: A course at Stanford that helps students answer the question of “what kind of life do you want to live?” rather than “what do you want to do”

  1. 1
    Current Life+ Current life but more experimental and amazing
  2. 2
    Make a Change You 100% commit to pursuing a shift in the next six months
  3. 3
    A “Pathless” Life “What if I truly followed the path I am called to and no one would laugh?”

The goal is not to design the perfect life nor to suggest that five-year plans are a good idea. The goal is to turn our brains on to imagine new possibilities

Reflection questions

  • Values: What values were most ignored in my life?
  • Career Baggage: What “career baggage” did I leave behind?
  • Fear Setting: What am I afraid of?
  • Creative: What are elements of my “creative engine” I want to factor in?
  • Constraints: What are constraints I can design around (e.g. “never set an alarm”)
1

Your Current Life But More Experimental

Make It As Amazing As Possible!

Items to populate: Health, Relationships, Work, Travel, Bucket List Items

Questions this plan addresses
2

Make a Change

Dream big!

Items to populate: Health, Relationships, Work, Travel, Bucket List Items

Questions this plan addresses
3

Pathless Plan

“What if I truly followed the path I am called to and no one would laugh?”

Items to populate: Health, Relationships, Work, Travel, Bucket List Items

Questions this plan addresses
Blank worksheet (PDF)

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Odyssey Plans come from Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans.