Have you been thinking of making a bucket list? A few years ago I was thinking the same thing. Do you get stuck when you try to do it? Me too. I started creating one back then but it seemed blah and untrue.
Since I was stuck, I started researching what other people put on their lists. I wrote down the things people listed and then put them into groups. The main groups looked like this:
- Fitness goals
- Creative goals
- Travel goals
- Material attainment goals
- Relationship attainment goals
- Fame goals
- Spiritual achievement goals
Within these groups there were subgroups:
- Fitness goals
- Complete an event (e.g. 5K/10K/marathon)
- Complete certain fitness challenges (e.g. 100 pushups)
- Join a gym / join a team
- Lose / gain weight
- Change your diet, go on a diet and lose x pounds, become a vegan / vegetarian
- Creative goals
- Write a book, play or poem
- Learn an instrument
- Learn how to draw, paint, sculpt, take photography
- Learn a language
- Act in a play
- Sing or play in a band
- Read certain books
- Travel goals
- Visit certain countries
- Visit cities
- Stay at certain places
- Go to certain museums
- Eat at certain places
- Meet certain people
- See specific sites
- Travel in specific ways
- Material attainment goals
- Own a certain vehicle
- Own a certain home/house
- Live in a particular place
- Start a business
- Save X amount of money
- Have certain investments
- Personal and Relationship attainment goals
- Get engaged / married / divorced
- Disconnect or reconnect with certain people
- Have kids
- Have pets
- Complete college or university
- Learn a non-creative skill
- Fame goals
- Win certain awards
- Meet certain people
- Perform in certain venues
- Appear in certain media
- Spiritual achievement goals
- Perform certain pilgrimages
- Do specific religious activities
I used this as the basis of my reverse bucket list. I went through those categories and listed all the things I had already done. It was surprisingly a lot.
Then I took things not yet done and separated them into three lists: Want to Do, Maybe Do, Not Interested in Doing. The first two make up my new Bucket List.
So now I have a Bucket List of things I want to do, plus a Reverse Bucket List of things that would have been on the Bucket List of younger Me.
A Reverse Bucket List is a good thing to have: it can help you come up with a Bucket List and it can give you a sense of accomplishment. I highly recommend you make both.
P.S. I started thinking again about bucket lists after reading this: One Thing I Don’t Plan to Do Before I Die Is Make a Bucket List. That’s totally understandable.
Another thought I had is there are things I want to do again. Go to Paris and NYC were things I really wanted to do when I was younger and I did. But I want to do them again. You don’t have to always be doing new and unique things. Sometimes enjoy what is have is the best.
Smart People I Know 