Creating Your Bucket List

This post is part of The Awakened Heart Project

Week 34: Creating a Bucket List 

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” 

– Zig Ziglar

Life Lesson: The Bucket List 

Have you seen the movie Bucket List? The one with Jack Nicholson, and Morgan Freeman? It’s a great little movie. The kind that’s rather cliché, but makes you smile, makes you cry, and leaves you feeling warm inside. It’s the story of two men, who are both dying. As they realize they’re running out of time, they decide to complete everything on their bucket list…together. The movie captures incredible moments -some on a grander scale than others. Nonetheless, it leaves you thinking, “Yes! I can do that! I need to do that!”

Creating life goals that aren’t always career focused or family focused is an important part of building a meaningful life. It seems many of us have constructed bucket lists that are centered on excelling in our careers (e.g. to be the vice president by the time I’m 40). Or, centered on money and material objects (e.g. to make a six figure income, and build my million dollar home). Or, the lists are more about others or hopes, but things that are totally out of ones control (e.g. to have three boys that all play soccer).

Don’t get me wrong; ALL of these goals, dreams, and aspirations are important and relevant. There is nothing more important than family, and having career aspirations is admirable to say the least. On the other hand, we are made up of far more than just our careers and our family. We are individuals, with individual dreams and aspirations. There are dimensions of ourselves we often overlook when we create these lists of goals. We forget about the importance of fulfilling more meaningful experiences and/or simply fulfilling our need for pleasurable experiences.

This week you’re asked to write a bucket list void of career aspirations or things you wish will happen in the future (e.g. three children name, Brian, Evan, and Sarah, that all play soccer. Hey, you might get three girls that all want to do ballet!). Rather, write the bucket list made up of three things:

(1) Experiences of your dreams (e.g. traveling to Vietnam)

(2) Experiences that will make you feel warm inside and will help you in your person growth endeavors (e.g. making a differences in someone else life, or working through your issues with a parent)

(3) Experiences that are small but add up to much more, and which can be done day to day (e.g. eat a smore for breakfast, use a sick day to get a massage, laugh like you did when you were a child).

What you are creating is a bucket list made of experiences that will bring YOU joy, happiness, reward, pleasure, personal growth, and deeper meaning to your life. Sure, big scale items like traveling are relevant, but you shouldn’t save times when you feel alive and full of life for just once a year, or once in a lifetime.

“If you’re bored with life & you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.”

– Lou Holtz

If you’re feeling up to it, share your list in the comments area for other to see.

These sites are also dedicated to building a bucket list, AND sharing it with others. Check them out. They’re full of awesome things.

Bucket List

The Bucket of Life 

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