Stage 3: Vision & Direction | The Life Scenario Lab

Most people think about their future the way they think about what to have for dinner when they're tired. They scroll through options in their head, feel a bit overwhelmed, and eventually just go with whatever's most familiar. Not because the other options aren't appealing. Just because nobody ever showed them a better way to think about it.

This exercise is a better way to think about it.

The idea is pretty simple, actually. Instead of trying to figure out the right path for your life, you write out several different versions of it. Side by side. In enough detail that they start to feel real, not just like ideas you're holding in your head. And then you look at what they're telling you - about what you actually want, about what you've been avoiding, about which ones might be able to coexist in ways you probably haven't considered yet.

This works whether you have one life you've been wanting to build deliberately, or six completely different futures all pulling at you at the same time. The exercise is the same either way. What you discover will be different.

If your life has mostly happened to you rather than been something you chose, then this is where you start choosing. You don't need to already know what you want. That's partly what this surfaces.

If you're someone with too many interests and too many possible futures rattling around in your head, then this is where you stop holding them all up there and start actually mapping the relationships between them. Because for most people like this, the real question isn't "which one?" It's "how do these fit together, and which one do I actually try first?"

Either way, you're not here to pick a winner. You're here to understand your options well enough to make a real, intentional move.

-THE RESEARCH

Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius introduced the concept of possible selves. Their research showed that people carry mental images of who they could become, both hoped-for and feared versions. These possible selves shape motivation, decision-making, and emotional well-being in measurable ways. The bit that surprised me is that people who could describe multiple positive futures turned out to be more resilient than people with just one, because when one path hit a wall, they had other directions to move in. They didn't experience that wall as the end of everything - just the end of that particular version. So whether you have six visions or one, the act of naming possible futures gives you more to work with than keeping them vague in your head.

There's also some useful research on counterfactual thinking. When people actively generate alternatives to their current reality, they get better at planning their actual future. The Life Scenario Lab flips this forward: instead of imagining what could have been, you imagine what could still be. Much more useful place to put your energy, I think.

Now, you might be wondering about the paradox of choice. Barry Schwartz wrote a whole book about how too many options paralyse people. That's real. But it's worth being specific about what kind of options he was studying - which jam to buy, which cable package to pick. Essentially equivalent choices where more options just create noise.

Life scenarios aren't like that. They represent fundamentally different expressions of who you are. And the paralysis people feel around their life visions usually isn't about having too many choices. For some people, it's about never having seen that other versions were genuinely available. For others, it's about having too many and no way to think about how they relate to each other. Both are solvable. That's what this is for.

One more concept I want to mention because I think it's genuinely useful: multifinality. A single action can serve multiple goals at once. When you write your scenarios and then look at them side by side, you'll start noticing things that show up in all of them - the same type of work, the same need for flexibility, the same kinds of people you want around you. Those recurring threads matter. They tell you what you actually care about regardless of which path you end up on.

And finally, research on identity integration shows that people who hold multiple identities do best when they find ways to integrate them rather than keeping them in separate boxes. This applies whether your identities feel wildly different or like variations on a theme. The question this exercise is really trying to answer isn't "which version of me wins?" It's "how do these parts of me relate to each other, and what kind of life structure lets them coexist?" And that's what the Life Scenario Lab is designed to answer.

How this works

You'll write 3 scenarios to start. That's enough to break out of binary thinking and start seeing real patterns. One of them can be the life you're already living, redesigned more deliberately - that absolutely counts. If you genuinely have 4 or 5 pulling at you, write them all. But 3 is where most people find the exercise clicks.

Set your own time horizon for each scenario. Some visions are 2-year experiments. Some are 10-year arcs. A scenario where you spend a year in Japan learning ceramics and a scenario where you build a consultancy over 7 years don't need to share the same timeline. Be honest about how long each one actually takes.

No scenario needs to be realistic yet. Realism comes later, in the strategy stage. Right now you're generating options and paying attention to what excites you. If you start editing for practicality too early, you'll kill the most interesting scenarios before they have a chance to breathe.

You're not choosing between these. You're mapping the landscape. Some scenarios will turn out to be compatible. Some will be sequential. Some will be genuinely in conflict. And that's fine, don't overthink it.

3 scenarios is the minimum. 3 is the minimum — it's enough to break out of binary thinking and start seeing real options. If you genuinely have 4 or 5, write them all. Don't force yourself to combine or cut just because it feels like too many.

-YOUR SCENARIOS

For each scenario, complete the following sections.

Part 1: Scenario number: Scenario name

Headline: Six words or fewer.

Time horizon: How long does this scenario actually take to play out? 1 year? 3? 7? Set your own. Be specific about why.

Timeline: Map your scenario across your chosen time horizon. Be specific about milestones, career moves, living situations, skills you'd build, and things you'd try. What does year 1 look like? Year 3? The end?

If this scenario runs for less than 3 years, break it into quarters instead.

The narrative: Describe this life in detail. Where are you living? What does a random day look like? Who are you spending time with? What are you proud of? What's your relationship with money? What's your energy like?

Write it in the present tense, as if you're already living it.

What would need to be true: List the conditions, resources, relationships, and decisions that would make this scenario real.

Could this coexist with other scenarios? This is the question the original Odyssey Plan never asks, and it's the most important one for multi-passionate people. Note whether it's compatible, sequential, or conflicting.

What would you need to test this? Before committing to this scenario, what small experiment could you run to check whether it's actually what you think it is? This connects directly to the Little Bets exercise in Stage 4.

List 1 to 3 experiments. Be specific about what you'd do, how long it would take, and what you'd learn from it.

Questions this plan raises: Write 2 to 4 questions you'd need to answer before taking this scenario seriously.

Dashboard gauges: Now rate this "trajectory of life" from 1 to 5 on the following:

• Resources: Do I have (or could I get) the money, skills, time, and connections to make this work?

• Confidence: How confident am I that I could actually pull this off?

• Coherence: Does this scenario fit with my values, identity, and what I know about myself from Stages 1 and 2?

• Aliveness: How alive does this scenario make me feel? When I imagine living it, does something light up?

• Integration: How well does this fit with my other scenarios? Could it coexist with some of them, or does it demand everything?

AI companion (optional)

How to use: Use this after you've drafted at least 3 scenarios, or if you're stuck. The AI works best when you give it real context about your current situation, skills, and interests.

Copy and paste the prompt below into Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI assistant alongside your current life context, skills, and interests

I'm working on a Life Scenario Lab exercise (adapted from the Odyssey Plan in Designing Your Life by Burnett & Evans). I'm working on designing my life more deliberately, and I need to create 3 to 5 life scenarios with flexible time horizons.

For each scenario, I need: a 6-word headline, a timeline across my chosen time horizon, a detailed narrative, dashboard gauges (resources, confidence, coherence, aliveness, integration), what would need to be true, compatibility with other scenarios, and small experiments I could run to test it.

Help me brainstorm each scenario. Push me to be concrete and specific. If I'm being too safe or generic, call it out. If I'm describing the same scenario twice with different labels, point that out too.

After we work through all of them, help me:

1. Spot patterns across the scenarios (what shows up everywhere)

2. Map compatibility (which could coexist, which are sequential, which conflict)

3. Identify the smallest experiments I could run to test the most exciting ones

My current life situation, skills, and interests: [INSERT HERE]

Part 2: Comparing your scenarios

Put all your scenarios side by side. Patterns will emerge.

What shows up in all of them? Look for recurring elements across your scenarios. Activities, values, types of people, locations, feelings, skills. If something appears in 3 or more versions of your future, it's probably core to who you are, regardless of path.

List them in one place.

The compatibility map

Now look at the "could this coexist" sections and draw the relationships.

Which scenarios could run in parallel? Which ones are sequential (do this first, that later)? Which ones are truly incompatible, and why?

This is where it gets interesting. Most multi-passionate people assume they have to choose. But when you actually map the relationships, you often find that 2 or 3 of your scenarios can coexist with some creative structuring. Maybe one is your weekday identity and another is your weekend identity. Maybe one is a 2-year chapter and another starts after it.

The incompatible ones are useful too. They force you to name the real trade-off. Or you can look for ways to incorporate certain pieces in smaller quantities in whichever way you can.

What surprises you? Which scenario excites you most? Which one scares you? Where did you notice yourself editing or censoring as you wrote? Which one did you write fastest?

Reflection

Spend a few minutes with the questions below. Take your time here, don't rush your answers

• Look at your "aliveness" scores. Is there a pattern? Are the scenarios that score highest on aliveness also the ones you've been avoiding?

• Look at your compatibility map. How many of your scenarios could realistically coexist? What structure would that require?

• If you could live 2 of your scenarios simultaneously, which 2 would you pick? What would that look like day to day?

• What's the smallest experiment you could run this month to test the scenario that excites you most? (Take this answer to the Little Bets exercise in Stage 4.)

• Who in your life is already living something close to one of your scenarios? Could you talk to them?

• 5 years from now, which version of you would you be proudest to meet?