Reverse Bucket List
If you can make a list like that and you say to yourself, this is important to me.
Season 4, Episode 54 · Reverse Bucket List
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The story behind the idea
You don't want to just get up on January 1st and say, okay, what do I need to start doing out of the blue right now to make this the best year ever? Instead, take the time at home or the time with family throughout the rest of November and December and assess what you want next year to look like.
What stands out
Look, I don't want to dismiss any of that too early. If you can make a list like that and you say to yourself, this is important to me. I've never done it and I want to do it, and it is possible in 2023, then start working on that right now. I don't give a whole lot of attention to bucket list items that are nowhere near reachable in the next two to five years.
Why it matters
I really wish more people would do this for several reasons, and we'll walk through it in the back half of this episode. First of all, and most simply, it makes you happy with the life that you've lived. It asks you to look around you present and past and to count your many blessings, to capture those great moments, to be proud of them or thankful for them. Whenever you leave this life, be it today or ten years from now, no one can take away from you who you have become, what you have learned, the relationships you have built, or even the places that you've gone.
A faithful way forward
Almost all of it is about time invested in wonderful relationships. Personally, I was trying to make just a reverse list for 2022, and everything on it had to do with family and loved ones. Two times my wife and I got on an airplane to go spend a couple of days out of state.
Put it into practice
I was crushed, she was crushed, but it led to a reevaluation that the most rewarding things in life are about taking what you know is rewarding and deepening it. Repeating it, getting it so etched in your memory because of how often that you've done it, that it never gets forgotten by you nor by the people that you love. Then go out and plan things this coming year that repeat and deepen and truly crystallize those concepts.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What idea from this study most needs my attention right now?
- 02Where does this challenge the way I am currently thinking or living?
- 03What is one faithful step I can take this week?
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