Ali does the Odyssey Plan in 2019 and finds his planned career in anaesthetics unexciting (2019)
story · status: told 5× · last event: mentioned (2023-09-29) · owner: Ali
Origin known from later mentions
2019 in the title is when this began; it first appears in the videos read here in 2020, so the earlier part is known only from what is said later.
About: Odyssey plan
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-07-03 | told | In his Odyssey Plan for staying in Cambridge, shared in his newsletter, Ali saw himself at 30 training part-time in anaesthetics, maybe some emergency medicine, supervising physiology for colleges and still making YouTube videos. | I'm Moving to America 🇺🇸 - Life Update 00:09:37 |
| 2020-12-20 | retold | Doing the Odyssey Plan around December 2019, Ali saw that his path of UK medical training in Cambridge, perhaps supervising at a college, felt too easy and without challenge. | 20 Lessons that Improved My Life 00:18:26 |
| 2021-05-26 | retold | Ali's current five-year path, a part-time trainee in anaesthetics still living in Cambridge with some teaching, some writing and the YouTube channel going well, felt depressing to him: too easy. | How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life 00:04:43 |
| 2021-09-19 | retold | Ali first did the Odyssey plan in December 2019, when Jade put out her video about it; spending half an hour thinking and writing about the five-year plans genuinely changed the trajectory of his life. | How to Make Productivity Healthier 00:14:01 |
| 2022-11-04 (happened 2019) | retold | Writing out his anaesthetics plan five years ahead, Ali found it neither exciting nor energising; he re-evaluated his life and chose YouTube, teaching and writing a book instead. | How To Build A Life You Love 00:07:31 |
| 2023-09-29 (happened 2019) | mentioned | Ali says doing the Odyssey plan in 2019 is what fundamentally prompted him to leave medicine. | Change Your Life by Journalling in 2026 00:11:37 |
What is said about it
14 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2020-07-03 · I'm Moving to America 🇺🇸 - Life Update — Ali: The idea of moving to the US came partly from a video by Unjaded Jade, a study YouTuber, on how to decide what to do with your life. — 00:08:14
- 2020-07-03 · I'm Moving to America 🇺🇸 - Life Update — Ali: That five-year Cambridge future seemed too easy to Ali: a path neatly laid out in front of him, with no challenge, no discomfort and no growth. — 00:10:34
- 2020-07-03 · I'm Moving to America 🇺🇸 - Life Update — Ali: Usama's story matched exactly what Ali had thought in his Odyssey Plan a few weeks earlier: he could see how that movie plays out. — 00:25:47
- 2020-12-20 · 20 Lessons that Improved My Life — Ali: The Odyssey Plan exercise was partly what prompted Ali to take a year out of medicine, meant for travelling the world before the pandemic. — 00:19:05
- 2020-12-20 · 20 Lessons that Improved My Life — Ali: Five years from now Ali would much rather have spent two years on YouTube, travelling or working in Australia than climbing the medical ladder in his comfort zone. — 00:19:05
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali's second exercise is the Odyssey Plan from Designing Your Life, by authors at Stanford: first write in detail a day of your life five years from now on your current path. — 00:03:20
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali first came across the Odyssey Plan about two years ago, when his friend Unjaded Jade made a video about it on her YouTube channel. (hedged) — 00:03:20
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali: The Odyssey Plan then asks what your life would look like five years from now on an entirely different path, if the current one were closed, and if money, others' opinions and societal expectations did not matter. — 00:03:49
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali at first could not be bothered to do the Odyssey Plan, then spent half an hour writing out his answers and shared some of them in his email newsletter. — 00:04:19
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali: Because that anaesthetics path was not challenging, interesting or uncomfortable enough, and he is, as Yes Theory would say, a big fan of seeking discomfort, Ali decided it was not the path he wants. — 00:05:12
- 2021-05-26 · How To Figure Out What You Want To Do With Your Life — Ali repeats the Odyssey Plan in his head every few months and says he will now write it out properly each time, since writing something down beats doing it in your head. — 00:05:42
- 2022-11-04 · How To Build A Life You Love — recommendation: Ali: The Odyssey Plan's other two paths are a completely different life five years from now, and a different path where money, other people's expectations and society's obligations do not matter, as if you won the lottery. — 00:06:26
- 2022-11-04 · How To Build A Life You Love — Ali: The point of the Odyssey Plan is not to commit to any of its paths but to systematically answer what building a life you love means to you. — 00:06:56
- 2022-11-04 · How To Build A Life You Love — recommendation: Ali thinks doing the Odyssey Plan every few years, or even every year if your life is changing quickly, is helpful. — 00:08:02