How to Create a Happier Life with Design Thinking
The Odyssey Plan
We’re 60% of the way through 2022, and it’s triggered some interesting conversations with friends. One of them was the classic, “what you want to be when you grow up?”
It reminded me of an exercise I did at the start of the year called The Odyssey Plan.
The Odyssey Plan
The Odyssey Plan draws on design thinking - an innovation methodology that works on products, services and experiences - to the most interesting problem of all, designing your own life.
Essentially, it’s a framework to help you start thinking about the different paths your life can take, and how you can be more intentional about which one you choose.
Before we dive in, it’s useful to consider the 3 commonly-held dysfunctional beliefs around the topic.
Dysfunction Beliefs
“If you identify your passion, you’ll know what to do with your life.”
This is too simplistic, there’s a whole list of things I could see myself doing, from a scuba diving instructor to a Silicon Valley product manager.
Studies show 80% of people are interested in more than one thing, so it’s unfair to pin our purpose on a singular passion.
“By the time you’ve graduated, you should know where you’re going. And if you don’t, then you’re late.”
The idea we go to school, then Uni, find a stable job, get married, then start a family by 25 is old fashioned.
People take fluid paths. It’s cliché, but the idea anything is possible is more relevant today than any other time in history. You can have 5 different careers in a lifetime. You can travel the world in your 30s. You can start a business in your 40s.
“You should optimise for best possible version of yourself”
I struggled with this one for a long time.
It implies that there’s just one singular best path my life can take, and that life is a linear progression towards that singular best.
Flip this belief on its head: what if there are many life paths I can take, all of which can lead to a well-designed life (albeit with different trade-offs).
How It Works
Now we’ve set the scene, let’s jump into the exercise. We brainstorm 3 possible ideas for how our life might play out over the next 5 years. You can do this visually or written. I know it’s a big ask, so here’s a guide on how we might start thinking about it.
Life Path 1. It’s the life you’re currently living. Imagine that you continued down the path you’re already on, but make it the best possible version of that. For me, that looks like staying in my job for 4 years, the startup I work for does really well, I receive a handsome payout from any equity, I get to travel to the Galápagos Islands and finally do a ski season in Whistler, Canada.
Life Path 2. Pretend your job doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been magically outsourced and you’ve been told not to come back in overnight. What are you going to do instead? For me, that is most likely to jump in the deep end and launch my own startup, to accept that I’m never truly ready to be a founder but just lean into it anyway. I get to work on interesting problems with interesting people, and enjoy the fruits of building something from scratch.
Life Path 3. Pretend you didn’t have to worry about money or what your friends and family think of you. What would you do? For me, that looks like taking the whole YouTube content creation route more seriously (something which I used to think would look silly), taking a part-time job doing something fun as a way to get myself out the house, travelling more frequently but for shorter periods of time, spending more time playing sports and hanging with friends and family.
In the spirit of being vulnerable, here’s the exact Odyssey Plan I sketched for Life Path 3 on 28th December 2021:
Dig Deeper
After sketching the different plans out, it’s time to label each path e.g. ‘4 hour work week’, or ‘digital nomad’. Then we can dig below the surface.
Let’s assess each plan based on 4 gauges, giving a score out of 10 for each.
Resources
How confident am I that I have the resources to make this happen? Think time, money, knowledge, skills, people in my network who can help me etc.
If not, can I see a path to getting hold of the missing resources?
I like it
Does it excite me? Is this cool?
Will I be proud of what I did with my 20s by the time I reach my 30s?
Confidence
How confident am I that I can make this happen, given practical considerations in my life?
Coherence
Does this live up to my values? Is it aligned with my true self?
If I told younger Saf this was what I’m doing now, would he be proud?
A final point which isn’t in the official Odyssey Plan, is I like to look across all 3 timelines and see if I can spot any common themes across them. For me, that’s doing a full ski season in Whistler, Canada, and living somewhere where I could surf everyday to eventually achieve my lifelong ambition, getting barrelled.
Prototyping
You could immediately start executing one of your Odyssey plans. But in the design process, the thing you do after you come up with lots of new ideas is to start prototyping/testing.
Prototyping means to ask yourself “what would it be like if I tried this possible future in some small and easy to execute way?”
Talk to people that are one step ahead of you. Challenge your assumptions. Try a class or an online course.
For me, that looked like enrolling in the Part Time YouTuber Academy to test whether or not I enjoyed the process of content creation (rather than the idea of it).
If you found this interesting or you feel inspired to write an Odyssey Plan of your own, hit reply and let me know!
Oh and if you’d like to learn more about this, I’d highly encourage you to watch the original Ted talk by Bill Burnett.
❤️ My Favourite Things
📚 Libgen
Libgen is a website that helps you find books for free, or trial them before committing to buying them. So far, there hasn’t been a single book that I haven’t found there. It feels like one of those websites that should be illegal to know!
🗺 East of Nowhere
East of Nowhere is a digital art brand that provides quality prints inspired by cartography, the field of map-making. They have some really cool stuff. Might buy one for my new place.
