Before Session 9 · Three Versions of You
Read this before class — 15 to 20 minutes. Bring your Good Time Journal; we're using what's already in it. Come-ready is at the end.
The big idea: there isn't one right plan — there are at least three good ones
Most people carry around a version of this belief without ever saying it out loud: I need to figure out my one best possible life, make the plan, and then execute it. Burnett and Evans call this a dysfunctional belief, and it's a heavier weight to carry than it looks — it means every year you're not sure is a year you're failing at some test only you can see.
Their reframe: there are multiple great lives inside you, not one correct answer waiting to be discovered. Stanford researchers actually tested this — they had one group generate several ideas in parallel before refining any of them, and another group commit early to a single idea and just keep revising it. The parallel group ended up with better final ideas, not just more of them. Committing early narrows your thinking before it's had a chance to explore. This week, you build three.
What each Odyssey Plan needs
Why five years specifically? Two feels too short to mean anything. Seven is long enough that too much will have changed by then to plan around. Five gives you one real chunk of life with a little buffer built in.
A visual timeline — five years, sketched out. Include the non-career parts too — relationships, health, where you live, what you're learning.
A six-word headline — the essence of this version of you, in exactly six words. Harder than it sounds — that's what makes it useful.
Two or three questions — what is this alternative actually testing? A good plan isn't a certainty, it's a question you're curious enough to chase.
A four-part dashboard — rate each plan on resources (do you actually have what it takes — time, money, skills, contacts?), likability (are you warm or cold on it?), confidence (do you believe you could pull it off?), and coherence (does it fit who you actually are — your Workview, your Lifeview?).
Worked example: Martha's three lives
Martha was a technology executive looking for something more meaningful in the second half of her career. Her three Odyssey Plans had almost nothing in common on the surface, but all three circled the same theme — building community — in three completely different registers.
Plan one: a Silicon Valley start-up, headlined “All In — The Silicon Valley Story,” asking whether she actually had what it takes to be an entrepreneur and whether anyone would fund her idea. Plan two: CEO of a nonprofit working with at-risk kids, headlined “Using What I Know — Helping Kids!”, asking whether her corporate skills would even translate. Plan three, the wilder one: opening a neighborhood bar in her own San Francisco neighborhood, headlined “Creating Community — One Drink at a Time!”, asking flat-out whether she was ready to take on that much risk.
Notice none of the three is obviously “the smart one.” That's not an accident — it's the whole design.
Make one of them a little wild
At least one of your three should be the plan you'd never actually tell your parents about first — money and image entirely off the table. Off the grid somewhere. Chasing something ridiculous and specific. You're not committing to it. You're finding out what shows up when the plan you're “supposed” to want isn't the only option on the page.
This week's belief → reframe
The belief that gets people stuck: “I need to figure out my best possible life, make a plan, and then execute it.”
The designer's reframe: There are multiple great lives within you — and you get to choose which one to build your way toward next.
Your journal
One entry before class: which of your three plans did you resist writing? Not the wild one necessarily — sometimes it's the safe, expected one that's actually hardest to put on paper honestly. Write for ten minutes about why that one felt hard.
Come Ready
They don’t need to be polished — rough sketches are exactly what you need to start before class, because class this week is where you pressure-test and finish them. Next week is entirely about sharing them, so by the end of class this week, all three need to be put down on paper.
ENT 1611 Designing Your Life · FSU Innovation Hub · Odyssey Plans and Martha's story: Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, Designing Your Life (Knopf, 2016) · Worksheets and submissions on Canvas