The big idea: You cannot plan your way to a good life, but you can design your way there: get curious, reframe the beliefs that keep you stuck and test small steps.
In 60 seconds
- Life design applies the human-centered design you already know to the person you are designing for: you.
- Curiosity, bias to action, reframing, awareness of the process and radical collaboration are the core mindsets.
- Dysfunctional beliefs keep you stuck. Reframe each one into a question you can test.
Do this: read the introduction, start your workbook and bring one belief you want to reframe to class.
How life design works
In BUAD 417 you studied about 100 leaders. BUAD 427 turns the lens around: the leader is you. You will use the same human-centered design you practiced in IB 407 and BUAD 317, except now the person you are designing for is yourself. The course follows Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, who teach the life design course at Stanford.
Accept where you are
Take an honest reading of your health, work, play and love. Separate problems you can act on from the ones you cannot.
Topic: Start Where You Are
Find your direction
Write a Workview and a Lifeview, then track what engages and energizes you in a Good Time Journal.
Topics: compass, wayfinding, assessments
Generate options
Mind map, reframe stuck problems and sketch three very different five-year plans.
Topics: Getting Unstuck, Odyssey Plans
Prototype
Test ideas cheaply with real conversations and short experiences before you commit.
Topic: Prototyping Your Life
Choose and keep going
Choose well, let go of the options you did not pick, learn from failure and build your team.
Topics: Choosing Well, Work Life
The nine mindsets in this course
Curiosity
Treat your own life as something interesting to explore, not a test to pass.
Try: turn a worry into a question.
Bias to action
Try small things instead of thinking your way to an answer.
Try: one small step this week.
Reframing
Change the question when you are stuck. A better question opens better answers.
Try: the Belief Reframer below.
Radical collaboration
Ask for help. Mentors, friends and classmates see options you miss.
Try: one conversation, not one more search.
Mindful of the process
Life design is a process with messy middles. Knowing that keeps you from quitting early.
Try: name the step you are on.
Empathy and compassion
Understand others, and treat yourself the way you would coach a friend.
Try: rewrite a harsh thought kindly.
Reflection and integration
Look back at what happened and fold the lesson into how you lead.
Try: a private journal entry.
Co-creation
Build your path with the people it affects, not around them.
Try: share a draft plan early.
Optimism
Believe there is more than one good life you could design, and act like it.
Try: list three lives you could enjoy.
Burnett and Evans describe five of these (curiosity, bias to action, reframing, awareness of the process and radical collaboration). This course adds four that matter for human-centered leaders.
Dysfunctional beliefs and reframes
Burnett and Evans call the assumptions that keep people stuck dysfunctional beliefs. A reframe does not argue with the belief. It changes the question so you can move.
Stuck belief
- “I should know what I want by now.” Assumes there is one answer and you are late finding it.
- “My major decides my career.” Treats a four-year choice as a forty-year contract.
- “I have to find my passion first.” Waits for certainty before doing anything.
- “The most impressive offer will make me happy.” Lets other people’s scoreboard pick for you.
Design reframe
- “I can learn which direction fits by trying things.” Direction comes from experiments, not from waiting.
- “My major is one input. My skills and interests travel.” An accountant can lead operations; an engineer can run a nonprofit.
- “Passion usually grows from doing work I am good at and care about.” Act first, and interest often follows.
- “I will test what a good day at work feels like for me.” Your own evidence beats a ranking list.
Coaching, not therapy
This course is not therapy or counseling. It is coaching for leadership development. Dr. Morris facilitates; the growth comes from the effort you put in. If something brings up more than a class can hold, UT’s campus support services are the right place for it.
Your journal stays private
Private journaling is strongly encouraged and is never collected. You choose what to share in class. Some topics will hit close to home. Write about those first, before you decide what, if anything, to say out loud.
How to reframe a stuck beliefFive moves you can use anywhere
- Notice it. Catch the sentence you say to yourself, word for word, and when you say it.
- Find the hidden rule. Look for should, must, never, too late or “the one right” anything. That rule is what makes the belief feel heavy.
- Check the evidence. Is it true for everyone? Do you know people who broke the rule and did fine? Ask them.
- Change the question. Move from “What is the right answer?” to “What could I try next, and what would I learn?”
- Take one small step. A reframe only works when it leads to action. Give the step a day.
Watch for fake reframes. Saying the opposite (“I do know what I want!”) is not a reframe, and neither is swapping one should for another (“I should be fine not knowing”).
Psychological safety in this seminarFour kinds, and what they ask of you
Dr. Morris runs this seminar with psychological safety in four forms. The four stages come from Timothy R. Clark’s model (The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety (opens in a new tab)).
- Inclusion safety: you can be yourself and be accepted.
- Learner safety: you can ask questions, give and seek feedback, try new things and make mistakes.
- Contributor safety: you are invited to use your skills and ideas to make a real contribution.
- Challenger safety: you can speak up and question the way things are done.
Safety goes both ways. You help create it when you listen fully, keep what classmates share in the room and disagree with ideas, not people.
Feedback, imposter syndrome and overconfidenceWhy honest feedback is part of the deal
High-potential people tend to fall into one of two traps. Imposter syndrome makes you doubt real ability and fear being found out. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the opposite: low skill at something paired with too much confidence, which makes feedback feel like an attack.
In this class you will get honest, human-centered feedback meant for your growth. You were selected for your potential, not because you are finished. For the full lesson and a tool to work through feedback, see Feedback, Imposter Syndrome and Blind Spots.
Where BUAD 427 fitsThe Human Centered Consulting Certificate sequence
BUAD 427 is part of the Human Centered Consulting Certificate sequence: IB 407, BUAD 317, BUAD 417, BUAD 427 and BUAD 497. BUAD 417 is its companion seminar: 417 looks at leaders, 427 looks at you as a leader.
By the end of the course you should be able to:
- Apply human-centered design thinking to personal and professional decisions.
- Use reflection and storytelling to uncover your values, strengths and motivators.
- Create and prototype multiple career and life paths.
- Practice curiosity, bias to action, radical collaboration and reframing.
- Design experiments and run informational interviews to test ideas in the real world.
- Build a personal career portfolio: a Lifeview and Workview, prototype plans and storytelling tools.
The life design ideas on this page come from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans of the Stanford Life Design Lab, explained here in our own words. Read the original in Designing Your Life (Knopf, 2016) and work through The Designing Your Life Workbook (Clarkson Potter, 2018).
Try it: Belief Reframer
Tool · BUAD 427
Belief Reframer
Catch a belief that keeps you stuck, rewrite it as a reframe and pick one small first move.
- 1Name it
- 2Reframe
- 3Try it
My reframe
All checks
Put it to work: your first workbook pages and class discussion
Two things are graded pass/fail in BUAD 427: class preparation and participation (read the books and contribute to discussion) and the leadership assignment (the Designing Your Life Workbook assignments plus the Designing Your Work Life handouts). This first topic starts both. Check Canvas for exact due dates.
Read the introduction
Read the introduction of Designing Your Life. Mark two ideas that surprised you and one you doubt.
Your deliverable: reading notes you can talk from in the first discussion.
Complete the workbook introduction
Do the introduction pages in The Designing Your Life Workbook before class. Write in it; the workbook is meant to be filled in.
Your deliverable: completed introduction pages, brought to class in the workbook.
Reframe one belief
Use the Belief Reframer to work through the belief that most often keeps you stuck. This is for you; sharing is your choice.
Your deliverable: one reframe and one first move with a day attached.
Start your private journal
Keep the journaling habit you began in BUAD 417. Write about the belief, where it came from and what happened when you tried your first move.
Your deliverable: a first private entry. It is never collected.
Bring to class
Your workbook, your reading notes, the mindset you are strongest in, the one you find hardest and one question about the course.
Your deliverable: ready to contribute to discussion, which is part of your participation grade.
Example: the sample student’s first weekWhat preparation looks like
A business analytics junior read the introduction and noticed she kept saying “I should already know.” In the Belief Reframer she wrote the reframe “I can test two or three directions this year and learn which ones give me energy.” Her first move: email one alum in healthcare analytics by Friday.
In class she shared the mindset she found hardest (bias to action) and her question (“How do I prototype a career while I am still in school?”). She kept the belief itself in her private journal.
Do this, not thatHabits that make the seminar work
Do this
- Finish the workbook pages before class so discussion builds on them.
- Write the belief in the exact words you use on yourself.
- Choose a first move small enough to do this week.
- Share what you are comfortable sharing, and journal the rest.
- Ask a classmate how they reframed theirs.
Not that
- Skimming the reading in the hallway before class.
- Writing what you think the instructor wants to hear.
- Reframes that just say the opposite of the belief.
- Treating class like a therapy session, or treating it like a lecture to sit through.
- Repeating outside class what a classmate shared in the room.
Before classCheck you are ready
- [ ] I read the introduction of Designing Your Life.
- [ ] The workbook introduction pages are filled in.
- [ ] I have one belief and one reframe I could talk about if I choose to.
- [ ] My first move has a day attached.
- [ ] I wrote a private journal entry.
- [ ] I have one question for discussion.
Go deeper
Back to all BUAD 427 topics · Next: Start Where You Are and Build Your Compass
Part of BUAD 427 Designing Your Life and Career, taught by Lane Morris, PhD, in the Smith GLS human-centered leadership program, toward the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
Frequently asked questions
What is Designing Your Life?
Designing Your Life is an approach created by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans at Stanford that applies design thinking to life and career decisions. Instead of searching for one perfect plan, you accept where you are, explore what energizes you, generate several possible paths and test them with small prototypes like conversations and short experiences. Their 2016 book of the same name is the main text in BUAD 427.
What are dysfunctional beliefs in Designing Your Life?
Dysfunctional beliefs are assumptions that keep people stuck, such as "I should know what I want by now" or "my major decides my career." They usually hide a rule like should, must or too late. In life design you reframe them by changing the question, for example from "What is the one right job?" to "What can I try next, and what will I learn?"
What are the life design mindsets?
Burnett and Evans describe five: curiosity, bias to action, reframing, awareness of the process and radical collaboration. BUAD 427 adds four that matter for human-centered leaders: empathy and compassion, reflection and integration, co-creation and optimism. Together they help you explore your life with interest, try small steps, ask for help and keep going through the messy middle.
How do you reframe a limiting belief?
Write the belief in your own words and notice when it shows up. Find the hidden rule, such as should or too late, and check whether it is really true. Then change the question so it points to action or learning, and avoid simply saying the opposite. Finish with one small first move that has a day attached, and reflect afterward.
Is a life design course the same as therapy or counseling?
No. BUAD 427 is coaching for leadership development, not therapy or counseling. You use design mindsets to explore your values, strengths and options, and you decide what to share in class. Private journaling is encouraged and never collected. If something comes up that needs more support than a class can offer, campus counseling services are the right place.