Odyssey Framework: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Odyssey Framework, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 2 minutes
Try it here: name three different five-year lives
Holding three different five-year lives side by side shows which assumptions you are making.
Name three five-year lives that point in different directions.
Practices that may help
- Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures
Odyssey plans are a practice from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s "Designing Your Life" framework in which you sketch out three distinct five-year life plans — not ranked by desirability, but genuinely different in direction. The exercise exploits prototyping logic from design thinking: holding alternatives in parallel prevents premature commitment and reveals assumptions you did not know you were making. - Build a coherent narrative across your three plans
Find the values and themes that appear across all three plans — they are your non-negotiables.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Question whether the category you’re reasoning from actually fits
Before applying a model or framework, verify that the category it was built on genuinely matches your situation.
The Ludic Fallacy: When You Mistake Real Life for a Game - Run a small experiment before committing to Plan B or C
Design the smallest possible real-world experience that would tell you something true about a plan before you commit to it.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Rate each plan on confidence, interest, and coherence
Score each plan on whether you find it engaging, whether you could execute it, and whether it fits who you are.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - The Obstacle Is the Way, in Practice
Ryan Holiday repackages Stoicism into a three-part discipline for turning obstacles into advantage: control your perception of the problem, take deliberate action on it, and use your will to endure what you can’t change. The practices are modern framings of ancient Stoic moves, so their strongest support is the same — the lineage into cognitive reappraisal and the studied benefits of reframing and action. - Draft three genuinely different five-year plans
Sketch three distinct five-year lives — not variations on the same theme, but genuinely different directions.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Run prototyping conversations before committing to a plan
Talk to people already living your Plan B or C before you decide whether to pursue it.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Facilitated reconciliation circle
Bring all affected parties together with a neutral guide to name harm, ask forgiveness, and restore relationship.
Ho'oponopono: Hawaiian Forgiveness and Reconciliation - Designing Your Life, Made Practical
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Stanford method treats your life like a design problem: you don’t "find" the one right answer, you prototype your way toward several good ones. The core moves — reframing stuck beliefs, drafting multiple Odyssey Plans, and running small prototypes — are practitioner tools adapted from design thinking, well-reasoned but not formally outcome-tested as a package.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve got these very different visions of my life on paper and I’m staring at them wondering what’s actually me underneath all of them
- I’m reaching for a framework that worked great somewhere else and dropping it onto this situation, and a part of me isn’t sure the two cases are actually the same kind of thing underneath
- I’m paralyzed between two paths, treating it as this irreversible all-or-nothing leap I have to be certain about first
- One future excites me but I don’t believe I could pull it off, another I could do but it’d cost me who I am
- I’ve quietly decided there’s only one acceptable version of my life and I’m white-knuckling toward it
Related concerns
- Odyssey Plan
Odyssey plans are a practice from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s "Designing Your Life" framework in which you sketch out three distinct five-year life plans — not ranked by desirability, but genuinely different in direction. The exercise exploits prototyping logic from design thinking: holding alternatives in parallel prevents premature commitment and reveals assumptions you did not know you were making.
- Odyssey Plans Designing Three Alternative Futures At Work
Odyssey plans are a practice from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s "Designing Your Life" framework in which you sketch out three distinct five-year life plans — not ranked by desirability, but genuinely different in direction. The exercise exploits prototyping logic from design thinking: holding alternatives in parallel prevents premature commitment and reveals assumptions you did not know you were making.
- Odyssey Plans Designing Your Life
Odyssey plans are a practice from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s "Designing Your Life" framework in which you sketch out three distinct five-year life plans — not ranked by desirability, but genuinely different in direction. The exercise exploits prototyping logic from design thinking: holding alternatives in parallel prevents premature commitment and reveals assumptions you did not know you were making.
- Design Thinking Life Planning
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Stanford method treats your life like a design problem: you don’t "find" the one right answer, you prototype your way toward several good ones. The core moves — reframing stuck beliefs, drafting multiple Odyssey Plans, and running small prototypes — are practitioner tools adapted from design thinking, well-reasoned but not formally outcome-tested as a package.
- Designing Your Life Exercises
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Stanford method treats your life like a design problem: you don’t "find" the one right answer, you prototype your way toward several good ones. The core moves — reframing stuck beliefs, drafting multiple Odyssey Plans, and running small prototypes — are practitioner tools adapted from design thinking, well-reasoned but not formally outcome-tested as a package.
- Oddysey Plan
Odyssey plans are a practice from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s "Designing Your Life" framework in which you sketch out three distinct five-year life plans — not ranked by desirability, but genuinely different in direction. The exercise exploits prototyping logic from design thinking: holding alternatives in parallel prevents premature commitment and reveals assumptions you did not know you were making.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.