Creating Your Most Epic Bucket List

Hello friends,

It’s not my usual posting day but I had to post this follow up to last Thursday’s post. I hope you had a chance to read “10 Reasons We Must All Create a Bucket List”.  (Go ahead do give it a read first.)

Ok, good!  Now that you are all inspired and ready let us move forward to creating our epic bucket  list.

What to include in the bucket list:

I always thought a Bucket List was a list of travel experiences one wants to have (I may not be the only one). I feel so blessed to have a life partner, my darling husband,  who also loves to travel.  Together we have had some amazing trips.   However, after raising three beautiful humans, running a successful business and now looking after our elderly parents I want to ensure I don’t let life pass me by.  Determined to live each moment to the fullest, I am on a quest to take every aspect of my life to the next level . That means my bucket list and its format also has to be updated.

I would like to argue travel experiences happen periodically in our lives while life experiences happen each and every moment. Therefore, a list should be made not only for travel experiences but also for all the precious moments in between.

The New Format:                                                                             

Tony Robbins, author, inspirational leader and life coach says, the key to human fulfillment is personal growth and contribution to others.  Author and founder of Mindvalley, Vishen Likhiani, takes it one step further and encourages us to focus on our experiences, personal growth and contributions to others.  He urges us to create a list with these three categories to achieve our end goals (meaning what we want to ultimately accomplish in our lives).  Well, I decided to use this strategy to make my bucket list. With this new insight we begin our journey forward.

The Three Categories:

1. Experiences:  “A human experience is the result of a conscious human mind observing an event” – Max Robinson. Therefore our whole life is full of experiences.  This could be a heart felt conversation with a loved one, an amazing cup of coffee, basking in the sun or parasailing in the Maldives.
2. Personal Growth: I love this definition of personal growth by worldminded.com “Personal growth is the ongoing process of understanding and developing oneself in order to achieve one’s fullest potential.” This may be as simple as changing a personal habit, going on a yoga retreat, reading a good book or taking a computer course.
3. Contribution to others: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.  How about cooking a healthy meal for your family, taking your elderly parent out for an afternoon, being kind and compassionate to a total stranger, volunteer for a good cause. 

Brain Storming Session: 

This is where we give free rein to our imagination and really figure out what are some of the things we would like to experience in our life and therefore include on our bucket list.  Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• Do not judge yourself
• Do not limit yourself
• Share with others – Inspire others or be inspired.
• Write things with time goals.  Short term, medium term and long term.
• Be specific on your action plan.  For example don’t say loose weight instead plan to incorporate physical activity into every day and/or replace pasta, rice or bread with fresh vegetables on your plate everyday.

Inspiration For Your list:

• Moments that make you happy – aspire to create more of them
• People that make you happy – plan to spend more time with them
• Things you are too scared to do – plan to do them
• Things you see other people do and wish you could do them
• What inspires you – incorporate that into your life
• Things you wish you could – plan to learn them
• Moments you wish to experience – create them
• Places and things you want to experience
• How you want to help others
• What are somethings you are good at that  you can share with others, teach others.
• Think of experiences that would enhance your daily life
• How can you be a better person
• What part of your personality you want to change
• What part of your life do you want to change
• How do you want to make others feel
• What contributions to others make you feel good
• How do you want to be remembered

Let Us Begin With Gratitude:

If you have been reading my blog you know I am the biggest proponent of gratitude (http://fabulousfiftyfive.com/unfolding-the-path-of-joy-through-gratitude/). As we move forward to creating a vision and clarity for our future, it is essential that we start by recognizing and being grateful for what we are blessed with.   Roy T. Bennet puts it beautifully,

“Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals.  If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.”

So before we create a future list lets sit down and make a list of all the amazing things we have already accomplished.  After all, gratitude is the shortest path to fulfillment.

“Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” Deepak Chopra .

Download This Beautiful Template To Create Your List :

Your list should be displayed in a very visible spot to keep your motivation high. It can be on the fridge, on a small bulletin board, on your mirror, etc. I have created this beautiful  template that would look aesthetically pleasing anywhere in your home. Here is the Template you can download and print to make your own gratitude and bucket list! Use the first page for your gratitude list and the second for your bucket list!  (You can give your lists any name you choose (hence, there is no title on the pages). The first can be your accomplishment, gratitude, completed list and second your bucket list, goals list, dream list, wish list. Whatever name you feel makes you feel passionate about these lists.)

The idea of the gratitude list is to remember, acknowledge and appreciate all the things that you have already accomplished that make you feel good.

Here are some examples of what to include:

• Gave a lot of time to your family
• Did amazingly well in your career
• Helped someone in need
• Changed a habit that you were not proud of
• Read a good book
• Gave someone good advice
• Had an amazing holiday
• Told someone how much you loved them
• Mended a broken relationship
• Changed your eating habit
• Started a fitness program
• Did something you were so afraid to do and so on…

Our gratitude list will be as  unique as all of us.  Remember, as you complete things on your bucket list move them to your gratitude list.  The hope is that one day your gratitude list will be a whole notebook full.

You will then look back at your life and smile because you didn’t just exist, you lived.

With Love,

Devinder ❤️

PS:  Here is a link to  Vishen Likhiani’s video of “Three Most Important Questions”.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVtBhVYZwY

Here is also an amazing site if you would like to make an on line Bucket List https://bucketlist.org/