Live By Design, Not By Default
5 Mindsets to Change Your Life
Did you introduce the idea of Odyssey Planning (from last week’s blog post) to any of the 2025 graduates in your life? I’d love to hear how that went!
Whether they embraced the idea or quietly rolled their eyes, I applaud your attempt to help people you care about become more intentional about shaping their lives. Now that you’ve planted the seed, you might be surprised at what they do with this knowledge when you’re not looking!
But whereas last week’s blog post was advice for graduates, today I want to talk about designing your own life.
It’s Never Too Late: The Choice is Yours!
I suspect most of my regular readers are well past the Odyssey Years (ages 20-35), so unless you have a young adult in your life, you might have blown right past last week’s topic. “I’m not in that life stage…nothing here for me…next!”
But if you’ve been feeling stuck lately, it’s really NEVER too late to change your direction in life. Whether you’re 20 or 60, nothing is set in stone!
My husband is a great example. For over two decades, he worked as a freelance audio engineer. On a film or video production set, he was the guy who showed up with a van full of gear and proceeded to capture high-quality audio.
Although the ups and downs of freelancing sometimes weighed on him, he never seriously considered a career change. Until the COVID-19 pandemic made the change for him!
Overnight, the work evaporated. He suddenly had all the time in the world to think deeply about what he REALLY wanted to do.
Guess what he’s doing now?
He has a job (not a gig, but a job!) creating immersive classroom experiences for VR headsets. How cool is that?
The company he works at creates VR training for people learning trades like electrical or plumbing. Even more exciting is that the company’s mission is to bring this training to individuals who are incarcerated or on probation to help provide a path to employment after prison.
My husband is using his skills and passion to help people and make a difference…and it all happened way past the age at which society says we have to “have it all figured out.”
The Design Your Life Framework: Finding Direction in Your Own Life
My husband didn’t jump from audio engineering to VR in a day. First he thought deeply about what kind of work would align with his passions. Then he set himself up with the skills and knowledge to do that work by taking courses and networking with key players in the industry. When opportunity knocked, Jim McManus was ready.
Intentionality is key when designing the life you want to create for yourself.
But how? How can you effectively prepare and plan your life with intention?
A good starting point is the Design Your Life framework, which was created by the writers of the Odyssey Plan and adapted from Stanford’s design thinking process.
This framework is based on five key mindsets that help people creatively and effectively navigate their lives:
- Be curious. There are more options out there than you can imagine! There’s one guy in Ohio who has built his entire career around servicing a certain type of doughnut mixer for hundreds of doughnut shops in the state. How random is that? So if you haven’t found the life you wanted yet, I promise—it’s out there.
- Try stuff (bias to action). Instead of overthinking or waiting for certainty, take small steps—prototypes, experiments, conversations—that help you learn what works and what you enjoy. And don’t just limit it to your career. My husband was doing 3D photography projects as a hobby long before he considered stepping into the VR industry.
- Reframe problems. When you’re stuck, reframing means stepping back and either changing the question or looking at it from another angle to unlock new solutions. The problem isn’t always what you think it is.
- Know it’s a process. Designing your life isn’t a one-and-done decision—it’s an ongoing process. You’ll try things, learn, adjust, and grow over time. I didn’t magically know that I wanted to become a coach; no, I first went to a coach because my leadership style wasn’t working. I saw firsthand how powerful it was. Then, eventually, I knew I wanted to be a coach myself. Expect iterations, not instant answers.
- Ask for help (radical collaboration). Life design isn’t a solo sport—it thrives on diverse input, conversations, and support from people with different experiences and perspectives. This ties back into the curiosity mindset too. Collaboration always opens up new doors that you wouldn’t find otherwise.
Together, these mindsets form the foundation of life design: an approach that blends creativity, self-awareness, and experimentation to help you design a life of meaning, purpose, and joy.
You might also recognize that these mindsets can help you be a more impactful leader and collaborator, even if you’re not contemplating your next big move in life.
Putting It Into Practice
Now that you’ve read through the five Design Your Life mindsets, you can see how the Odyssey Plan I covered last week is an exercise to actually apply these mindsets.
I mentioned how the Odyssey Plan is designed for those graduating from college and making those early life decisions. But the truth is the process is just as relevant—arguably even more powerful—for established professionals.
At this stage, people often find themselves asking:
- Is this all there is?
- What’s next for me—professionally, personally, or both?
- What legacy do I want to leave?
- What would I do if I weren’t afraid?
The Odyssey Plan can be a tool for exploring career reinvention, entrepreneurship, creative pursuits, or anything else that can be made into a 5-year plan. Changing or pivoting midlife is not failure; it’s evolution.
If you enjoy reading, I hope you someday take the time to read the Designing Your Life book. Otherwise, you can still learn about the Odyssey plan and go through the process using the links below:
Feel free to adapt the prompts and frameworks as needed to fit your current stage in life!
“When you have a plan and you put your intention out into the world, you give the world the opportunity to give you what you want.” — Bill Burnett, Stanford Professor and author of Designing Your Life