Mapping your Creative Destiny: 5 Year Plans

Plural, because we don’t have just one good path ahead of us.

Apr 11, 2025

Hey Creative Wanderers,

Have you ever mapped out a 5 year plan before? 🤔

I love thinking about and planning for the future, so I’ve made many 5 year plans. My husband would rather eat stinky socks. So I truly understand if thinking about the future doesn’t bring you jars of overflowing joy.

Usually the biggest reason people don’t like thinking about the future is because it changes. Because we don’t “get it right.”

But what if we don’t have to get it right? Most people have a Plan A, and if you don’t nail that, then a worse Plan B, and if you fail miserably at that, you might as well do Plan C, which will stink, but it’s better than giving up.

One of the ideas that stuck with me the most from the training I got from Stanford University’s Life Design Studio is this:

We all have multiple good lives inside us.

Let’s stop worrying about what will happen when we mess up our plans for the future—because let’s be honest, we’re all going to mess things up. That’s what makes us human. Even better, getting things wrong is how we learn.

I have to go on a tangent here, because I know I have some people of faith who read this newsletter.

You’d think that people of faith would be really good at this concept, seeing as there are all these maxims: “People make plans, God laughs.” Right?? Instead, and I can say this because I’ve been there, we get all tied up into knots about missing God’s Plan for our Lives.

Can I just be real for a second here?

If all of God’s plans rested on people getting it right all the time, the Earth would have imploded by now. Being perfect just isn’t our strong suit as a species, and you can bet God knows that by now. Because of that, as long as our ears are open to God’s whispers and guidance in our lives, there may be more than one way to launch our destiny.

So when I talk about mapping our next five years, know that I mean multiple maps. Because it’s healthy to explore multiple ways of accomplishing our dreams. It creates resilience inside us for when things don’t go to plan.

Getting Starting with Your 5 Year Maps: Using Your Wayfinding Map

In the Wayfinding Map activity in my last newsletter post, I discussed how to acknowledge where we’ve been, and the themes and curiosities we have now that will draw us into the next stage of our lives. Now it’s time to imagine ourselves forward into the next five years. Where could these themes and curiosities lead us?

In my Wayfinding Map, which I created 3 years ago, I had a few themes I wanted to continue into the future.

Two in particular held a lot of career weight: illustrating my novel (pink) and facilitating Career Design Studio expansion at Montserrat (blue). I definitely continued to explore these threads, and in these past three years, I accomplished much in these areas!

I finished sample illustrations for my YA fantasy novel, got an agent, and started my submission journey to publishers.
I expanded the Career Design Studio and ultimately was promoted from director to assistant dean.
(Oh, and next year, my son will enter kindergarten. Wild!)

When I think about mapping my next five years, I definitely want to think about how these threads will continue to grow and expand in my future. (Check out my MAP ONE below to see how I did that!)

MAPPING PROMPTS: Let’s Create Three Wildly Different 5 Year Maps!

MAP ONE

Look at the current themes or “threads” in your life (or on your Wayfinding Map, if you did that). What would happen if you extended them into next year? The year after that?
Choose one thread and pull on it. Make it bigger. When you think about this particular thread or theme in your life…
- What are you curious about exploring in the next 5 years?
- If you gave it your full attention, where could this go?
- What’s a new direction or new idea that you could add to this interest to build on it?

MAP TWO

What could you do in the next 5 years if your main thing now no longer existed? What side quests could become your main thing?

I’ve done map two in the past and it’s been freeing to look at my life from a completely different perspective. But I’ll be honest, I skipped this one because it was too dark right now. I don’t want Montserrat College of Art (my day job) to not exist anymore, but with the state of higher ed these days, that doesn’t seem like a laughably unbelievable prospect anymore. Let’s move on, shall we, because I’m a chicken.

MAP THREE

What would you do in 5 years if you had no fear? No restrictions related to time, finances, or whether people might think you’re making a bad decision?

Thanks for reading Mending Hearts, Launching Destinies! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Reflecting on Your Maps

You may notice the gauges and space for questions at the end of these maps. These are excellent tools for reflection. Since you’re creating three great versions of your life, these maps are meant to help you brainstorm and bring fresh insights and possibilities to how you’re thinking about your next five years.

For me, these gauges and questions were especially helpful at the end of Map Three. Halfway into Map Three, since it’s supposed to be the “no restrictions” map, I plopped in a pipe dream I’ve had for a while about buying a big house by the ocean for running writing and spiritual retreats.

But as soon as I put it on the page, I realized: I don’t actually want that. As cool as a home with an ocean view would be, I don’t want my day job to become running an AirBnB and hosting retreats. That sounds miserable!

It was funny how putting a daydream on paper helped me understand that I just want to attend writing retreats in big houses that overlook the ocean, not manage the venue. 😂

Like making maps of your life?

Stanford U Life Design Lab calls these five year plans Odyssey Maps. Because life is a journey and an adventure, right? And we don’t really know where it will take us. For more information about Odyssey Maps, check out Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, where they go into detail about this whole process.

If you end up creating your three wildly different 5 Year Maps, or even just one, I’d love to see it!