I often give a presentation “What will you do to get what you want” helping people create a job search marketing plan. The first step is to understand what you want. After all you can’t get “there” unless you know where “there” is!
One of the elements we talk about is a bucket list. A bucket list is more than a 2007 movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It is a way of putting your dreams into action!
I have had a bucket list for years. My parents had one before me. Their bucket list included things like learn to fly, ride motorcycles, and travel the Oregon Trail, take an Alaska cruise. These things would never have happened if they did not write them down.
As I clean my office in an annual spring cleaning ritual, I found bucket lists my daughter Marissa and I created in 2002. Both lists have 27 items. As I look at my list 13 years later, I feel proud.
Of the 27 items on my list I’ve already accomplished 11 dreams. These are wide ranging items including:
- Get published in HR – I have three books to my name!
- Volunteer at church – I was president of consistory in 2006
- Be a consultant so I can set my own hours – I founded The Interview Doctor in 2004
- Open a restaurant or store – we have a store on The Interview Doctor website. That counts doesn’t it?
- Earn over a certain large number – I did!!
- Pay off my house – I did in 2004
- Be a thought leader – my ramblings get shared so I guess that counts
- Have a house by the water – we plan to live on our boat
- Teach in a college – thanks to my friend Chad Cook I taught classes at Baldwin Wallace University last year
- Be an actress – I sang a four line uncredited solo in Children of Eden last year. Small I know but it counts. Plus I now know how terribly hard this is!
- Learn to pilot a boat – I can run our boat! Just don’t ask me to dock yet…
It is amazing how powerful words can be. According to this list, I still have some work to do. Many of my other bucket list items involve travel and history, some of my favorites. Some involve life changes we plan for the near future like living somewhere warm and traveling by boat to New Orleans. Some of them involve activities I am not too well suited for given my clumsiness like climbing a mountain and learning to ski. I plan to tackle all of these bucket list dreams however challenging.
Spring cleaning season is the perfect time to take stock. Maybe you will find the bucket list you put aside years ago. Take a few minutes to image what you want to check off your list in the next 15 years.