Life: a one time offer! 7 steps to your bucket list

Have you got a bucket list?

Yes?

What’s on it?

Do you keep it close to hand or do you drag it out once every 5 years?!

No, you don't have one?

What are you playing at? Life it seems! Come on, you need to get serious.

The average life expectancy is only 69 so we really are here for a good time, not a long time.

What Would Be On Your Bucket List?

One thing I’ve wanted to do for YEAR’S is water ski and this weekend I’m going to get the chance to do it! It’s something that has been on my bucket list so when I get to ticking them off I get even more excited that I’m achieving one of my life’s goals.

A bucket list is a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish in a lifetime. It comes from “kicking the bucket"

A good bucket list should be balanced that will take us through our life as we grow.

Things such as get a full time job and pay your own rent that are easier to accomplish. As you grow older things such as “Earn £100,000 a year” or “Own your own home”.

There should also be BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals) on there such as “Reach £1 million in savings, assets and investments” or “Own a holiday home”.

What do you want out of life?

Whether you’re 20 or 80 writing a bucket list is a MUST.

You need to define what you want out of life. Isn’t it time that you ran your life rather than your life running you?

Why am I talking about creating a bucket list in August? Well for 1 I don't agree with using the New Year as the one time of the year to review your goals or what you want out of life just for it to be forgotten about in January. We should review our goals and desires on a frequent basis and I do this with of my coaching clients. And number 2, I've found August to be a great month for reflection and having a life detox as it's generally quieter with lots of people on holiday. Use this amazing time of the year to create and generate a new life for you and your family.

So, if you’ve not got a bucket list then why not?

What are you doing with your life if you don’t know what you want out of it?

What are you doing for fun? What do you want to achieve?

What do you want to see? What do you want to have?

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How do you write a bucket list?

You should add in things that challenge you, add in things that you will find fun and add in things you can build upon such as running a 5K up to a marathon.

I've had a bucket list for years and I have some best practices that I've developed to help you build yours.

Here's My 7 tips to Writing Your Bucket List

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1. Add in travel destinations. This is usually the biggest section on most people’s bucket lists. Travel is something that is often delayed until we have time and or money to enjoy travel. Many people equate this to be retirement but why wait until then! Get going while you’re young and energetic! Take the kids with you! Go!!

2. Add in new skills to learn. The days of going to school and stopping learning are a distant memory. To keep up with competition you need to keep learning new things related to your field to stay competitive or to embark on a new career or business mid-way through your life. Alot of things that you learn are fun and stress relievers. Think of the things that you would really like to learn.

3. Add in Life Milestones such as the first kiss, children, first cars or homes, getting a degree, going on holiday with friends, moving out of your parents’ home, getting married and being there for your baby’s first step.

4. Don’t forget giving back to charities or in other ways. Life is not just about you or me, it’s what we can do for others. Being charitable feels good, it may be that you actually get more out of it than how you would feel doing things for yourself. Things such as adopting an endangered animal, becoming a blood donor, volunteering for a charity, starting a non-profit organisation or doing a run for charity.

5. Add in Sporting events or entertainment. Finding ideas for this should be easy if you like your sports! Going to the Olympics, Wimbledon, getting an athletes autograph, seeing one game at every football stadium or watching a film outdoors.

6. What about personal and family goals you might want to accomplish? These goals should make you feel better in some way. They could include creating a family tradition, cooking a new recipe once a week for a year, developing an exercise habit, reading a book a week for a year, taking a photo every day for a month or getting a coach to help be the best version of yourself.

7. Love food and drink? What about trying dishes from different cultures or environments? Tying these in with travel make for an exciting twist. What about eating gelato in Italy, pizza in New York, having a drink in an ice bar or (my personal favourite) eating chocolate from a Godiva Chocolatier in Belgium.

Some people think that bucket lists are something that are never meant to be completed. Who wants to get to 50 and realise they’ve achieved everything!?

However my personal thoughts are why not!? Why not achieve everything you want by 50 and then write another one!! Every 5 years or so I write a new bucket list and I wrote mine in 2014 so it’s definitely due an update.

You’ll find that some things you wrote just don’t float your boat anymore so why keep them on? Just change them.

Keep most of the items on your bucket list achievable, but make the amount of items and the amount of tough completions that finishing everything would be really tough.

There you go! You’re now ready to write your Bucket List.

Use my template to write yours. Join my #BalanceJunkie group on Facebook and find it in Files.

Why not pick one to do each month or each quarter for the next year?

Make a real effort to tick some of the amazing things off the list you’ve just written!

If you want some inspiration here’s mine (some of them I've ticked off - see 70!):

1. Take flying lessons

2. Go to Florida

3. Go to Borneo

4. Go to Thailand

5. Go to China

6. Walk the Inca trail

7. Walk the Great Wall of China

8. Visit the 7 wonders of the world

9. Run a half marathon

10. Buy a home near the sea

11. Buy a villa in Florida

12. Buy an apartment in NYC

13. Buy 20 investment properties

14. Be a landlady

15. Go in a balloon

16. Have a £1 million pound property portfolio

17. Get married

18. Have a child

19. Skydive

20. Go to the Highlands of Scotland

21. Drive Route 66

22. Start my own business

23. Complete Psychology degree

24. Go to Everest base camp

25. Surf

26. Go on Yoga Holiday

27. Go snowboarding

28. Go to St. Lucia

29. Go to St Bart’s

30. Do Scuba diving

31. Go on a safari

32. Volunteer with the Prince’s Trust

33. Volunteer with homeless shelter

34. Volunteer with domestic violence charity

35. Mentor/coach other people

36. Walk Hadrian’s wall

37. Follow the Moto GP circuit

38. Take a Virgin Galactic Trip

39. Have a 4 bed detached house

40. Go to the Maldives

41. Swim with dolphins

42. Go whale watching

43. See northern lights

44. Ride an elephant

45. Do New Year in New York city

46. Do canoeing/kayaking

47. Fly 1st class

48. Write a book

49. Do dog sledging

50. Stay in a penthouse suite

51. Go to Fiji

52. Go on a gondola in Venice

53. Go white-water rafting

54. Kite surfing

55. Go sailing

56. Hold a monkey

57. See turtles nesting

58. Ride a horse

59. Visit an igloo

60. Charter a yacht

61. Get a cleaner

62. Wine tasting

63. Cookery class

64. Fly on a trapeze

65. Attend a school reunion

66. See a Las Vegas show

67. Fly in a helicopter in the grand canyon

68. Go on a gameshow

69. Watch a space shuttle launch

70. Start a blog

71. Create a website

72. Learn to ice skate backwards

73. Climb an indoor rock wall

74. Fly a kite

75. Go on a Segway

76. Go in a natural hot spring

77. See a panda in the wild

78. Visit a concentration camp

79. Live in a foreign country

80. Visit pyramids

81. Visit a Buddhist temple

82. Drink beer at Oktoberfest

83. Visit all 7 continents

84. Learn Tai Chi

85. Visit a driving range

86. Go water-skiing

87. Go wakeboarding

88. Watch the Tour de France

89. Watch Isle of Man TT

90. Watch Cycling in a velodrome

91. Visit Victoria Falls

92. Visit the Great Barrier Reef

93. Visit Bora Bora

94. Visit St. Lucia

95. Visit Christ Redeemer in Brazil

96. Visit Taj Mahal India

97. Visit New York Library

98. Go to Chicago

99. Find my Purpose

Having a Bucket List will give you drive and ambition to remember what you want out of life when things get busy (as they always do!).

Go do it!

#BalanceJunkie