Odyssey Planning: Reframing the career planning process
You've likely heard of making a 'Five Year Plan' but have you ever put pen to paper to make one?
Possibly not, as for many it's quite an overwhelming thing to do. So many options, so many questions and assumptions. Not to mention trying to anticipate any curveballs that you know life can throw at you.
I know just saying the words 'Five Year Plan' makes some cringe on the spot - it feels stuffy, formalised and rigid. It's even more anxiety-inducing if you can't see the next six months ahead, let alone the next five years.
This is why I want to introduce you to the Odyssey Planning process - a creative, playful and valuable tool in career planning that can be held a lot more lightly as a planning process.
Taken from the book 'Designing Your Life' by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans this process allows you to explore different options in a visual way that allows for the unknowns and uncertainties.
A new approach to long-term life and career planning
I don't just write this article from using this process on myself, I have introduced it to my career coaching clients with great success. Interestingly, the process of even just messily attempting an Odyssey Plan, tends to help people surface the big questions or issues that are really causing them to feel stuck. And often as a coach, this helps me know where to head for the best unsticking!
So let's dive in...
What is an Odyssey plan?
In its essence, it's a brainstorm of how your career plan might look in five or ten years (I tend to work with five years).
Watch this video to get an understanding...
So in summary, without committing to a rigid plan of action, we move forward having a potential loose plan mapped out (or a few plans). This keeps us ready to engage in what comes; helps us make thoughtful decisions; and allows us to think ahead when short-term pain tempts another course of action.
Why it's a good tool in current times
We live in a world of social media which makes it very easy for anyone to look at someone else and see the surface success without knowing what went on behind the scenes. This instant viewing tends to make us want things more urgently and look for quick fixes, which in many cases are often being sold on social media too.
I had a potential client say to me the other day that they wanted to write a book; be a yoga teacher; have a side business doing marketing. Needless to say, she felt stressed and overwhelmed - it was difficult mentally to process everything, let alone prioritise day to day. Oh and she desperately needed to move house in the next few months and was finishing off a qualification.
It is possible to have what you want, but maybe not all next week.
Sometimes we are trying to pack too many priorities in at once and this is usually a symptom of not having thought through a longer-term plan or simply reacting to external sources of societal pressure. You absolutely can write that book, but maybe that's one to shift to the next year when you've moved house and have a stable income.
Social media tells us to go for all these dreams, but it doesn't as much tell you to pace yourself given everything else going on in your life. It takes you out of your lane and into someone else's.
So it's important to define your lane and then use any inspiration or advice accordingly through your own filter.
And for me, the process of Odyssey Planning is that - defining your lane, or even a few lanes that you can reference. Especially when you have a life crisis wobble, things are feeling hard for some reason and you find yourself questioning every decision you ever made.
How to make an Odyssey Plan
One option here is to buy the book and follow the instructions.
Another option is you can follow this adapted version of the process I use and see how you go.
Step 1: Decide how many Odyssey Plans you're going to do
The book suggests you do three Odyssey plans - one on your current route, one on an alternative and one on a wild idea.
However, I would suggest you don't follow this as prescriptively and do what suits the situation you are currently in:
If you are at the crossroads between two career paths or trying to decide between two jobs, do two.
If you largely know the direction you're heading in a particular field or industry but have decisions to make within that, make just one for now.
If you have half a dozen career options in your head, pick three (including the wildest one) and have a go at mapping those out.
Step 2: Draw out the templates
Grab an A4 sheet of paper and divide it up into five sections. If you have A3, this can also be an option.
Add this year to the first column, followed by the next four. Create one of these for each plan you are aiming to do.
Title the plan with a name for that career route e.g. Portfolio Career Photography and Consulting, Marketing Agency, Stand-Up Comedian etc. You can make these creative names or you can just keep them as something that makes the most sense to you.
Step 3: Start with this current year
Start to flesh out this current year based on the things you know are happening in your career and what the start of this plan might look like. And then think... if this year went according to plan on this career path, what would happen?
Would you sign-up for a qualification?
Would you change jobs?
Would you start to earn income in some other form - on the side or start a business?
If you can, try to use icons or little images alongside words and phrases so it's more visual and memorable to you. Connect things with lines or arrows.
I tend to use a pencil so I can rub things out or change them as I go and then go over in coloured pens.
But remember, if you mess this one up, you just start a new one. And this does not need to be an artistic masterpiece - the thinking that you are doing is far more powerful than the end result. My original ones are messy pencil pages of thoughts and flowing thinking.
Image from ‘Design Thinking Your Life’ by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans
Step 4: Switch your thinking to your personal life
Now that your brain is thinking along these lines, consider your personal life and start to add these events over the next three to five years...
One of the powerful parts of the Odyssey plan is that it allows you to look at your life as a whole and factor everything into your career plan.
Will you maybe move house or move in with a partner?
Start thinking about children or marriage?
Go travelling or take a big trip of some sort?
Remember this is just a rough idea as some life events you can't fully control, but you're putting out the intention that if this happened around that time it would work quite well.
Interestingly I moved house only a month or two later than I had thought on one of my original Odyssey plans, so see it as a mini-manifestation process!
The real power is that it might make you think about things like getting a mortgage, taking time off for children, saving desires, etc.
Step 5: Create a five-year career outcome and work backward
Now go back to thinking about your career and consider the 5th year. Where would it be really cool to get to here? Write that down there.
This now gives you a reference point to go back to year two and try to map out the steps for your career on this path towards year five. What would be the logical stepping stones? In which years might you go to each one.
It's likely going to feel like guesswork the further ahead you go but try to keep on the positive side - so assume you will get clients or be promoted or progress in a way you desire that leads you towards that outcome.
As you do this, have a separate notepad to write down your questions, assumptions or doubts as you go. So for example:
Will I enjoy working in a small company?
Would I need to write all day in that type of job?
Can I earn enough doing that part-time?
Assumption: I get promoted within a year of starting the new job
Assumption: I get accepted onto that degree course
Step 6: Add some fun
If by this point, it's all feeling quite heavy, add some super fun bucket list things to years four and five in terms of your personal life that really excite you e.g. an iconic travel trip (be specific on where) or starting a new creative hobby.
Step 7: Build on the questions and assumptions list
Now go back and just add to your master list of questions, assumptions or doubts anything that you didn't get initially. You want this to be as exhaustive as possible.
This is now where your attention goes next, you look to confirm or gather evidence for these. Are your doubts true or just in your head?
But even before you go on to do that step, I expect you've got a lot from completing your Odyssey plan just by itself.
So go and celebrate that first!
Watch how you feel over the next week or month knowing you've mapped out your lane a little and given air to some important questions you have.
If you'd like some help with your Odyssey planning or want to talk through yours with a coach to unpick it, drop me an e-mail and ask about booking a 90 minute deep dive.