My lifetothemax newsletter is usually about my New Year’s goals and how I’m progressing toward each one, but this year I’ve broadened this topic to include some longer-term goals. Specifically, I published my 100-item bucket list. I then set myself the challenge of achieving ten of those bucket list goals in 2023. The year is over halfway done and I’ve completed only three, so it’s time to plan how I’m going to complete the rest of them!
Before we begin, which goals have I already completed?
(Note: The numbers associated with each goal are from the original list I published in January.)
(36) Do a triathlon.
(52) Do an entire training program for a race with a friend.
(57) Build my personal website to archive all that I create (what a convoluted way to say that).
Okay, so I need to complete seven more. It can’t be that hard, right?
There are only two goals I have a very high likelihood of completing this year (if nothing goes wrong):
(26) Eat tacos in Mexico City: Charlotte and I are going to Mexico for a week in September with some friends (Shout out to Andrei, Bella, Jesus, and Lila), and I have every intention of eating some tacos.
(45) Run the NYC marathon: I’m signed up and training for it.
I will operate under the assumption that I will complete these two goals and disregard what assuming makes out of u and me. That leaves five more that I need to actively plan for to get to ten.
Now, some of my bucket list goals are clearly impossible to complete this year because I either don’t have enough time (e.g. (29) Spend a month in a US national park), enough money (e.g. (71) Buy a home), or the goal was not meant to be done in a year anyway (e.g. (80) Read 1000 books).
On top of those, as a rule, I’m excluding all goals that involve unplanned travel. I don’t have the funds or the time to book a new trip before the end of the year, so I’ll have to make do with the other goals.
So what does that leave?
I’ve broken it down into three categories:
Category 1: Goals that will cost me some money:
(16) Take a helicopter ride over New York.
(32) Go skydiving.
(33) Go bungee jumping.
(86) Go to a movie festival.
I can realistically afford one or two goals in this category, no more than that. The helicopter ride over New York could be an option, which would set me back about $250. The film festival, depending on the size, could be very doable. I just need to find the right one. For the other two, I still need to do more research on cost/viability.
Category 2: Physically challenging goals:
(40) Do ten pull-ups in a row.
(42) Run a 5k in under 25 minutes.
(43) Run a sub-4-hour marathon.
(44) Run a 10k in under 50 minutes.
All of these are doable, but the December 31 deadline makes them complicated. I hope my marathon training gets me fast enough to finish the NYC marathon in under 4 hours. That’s an hour and twenty-three minutes faster than my first marathon, but I did that one with no training, so we shall see. I won’t have time to do specific training for the 5k and 10k, but I hope the marathon training will translate into getting me fast enough at these distances too. The only extra training I can realistically do alongside my marathon training is a few daily pull-ups.
Category 3: Goals that I just have to sit down and do:
(62) Create a font.
(64) Build a piece of furniture out of wood.
(95) Contribute to an open-source project.
I may have to do all three of these depending on how the other two categories go. The great thing is these goals feed two birds with one scone because they also count towards my New Year’s resolution of working on 25 small creative projects.
Okay, that’s eleven goals that I can technically achieve, and I have to do at least five. Here’s the plan of action.
I’m going to:
Complete my marathon training, which will hopefully unlock all of the following goals:
Run a sub-4-hour marathon.
Run a 5k in under 25 minutes.
Run a 10k in under 50 minutes.
Practice doing pull-ups daily until I can do ten in a row (hopefully before the end of the year). I’ll just have to channel my inner David Goggins.
Buy a ticket to an upcoming movie festival, and attend said festival.
Decide which out of bungee jumping, skydiving, and the NYC helicopter ride will be most viable, and buy a ticket to do that one.
Create a super basic font using my handwriting so I can learn how that works.
Pick a piece of furniture that would be easy-ish to build, then figure out how to build it.
Find an open-source project I am passionate about and find a way to make a meaningful contribution to it.
That’s it. Seven tasks. Should be easy, right?
It feels pretty lame to plan out bucket list goals. A bucket list is supposed to be filled with super exciting things you can’t wait to do, so why does it take all this planning? Shouldn’t I be dying to get them done? Why does it feel like work to do the things I’ve always wanted to do?
The answer to these questions is precisely why I started the lifetothemax newsletter in the first place. I was tired of having a bunch of things I wished I could do and having those aspirations lead nowhere. I’ve been disillusioned. If you want to do something with your life, you can’t wait around and hope something will happen—you have to make it happen. That takes work.
So yeah, I plan out my bucket list goals, as lame as that is. Because I fully intend to check all of them off the list.
Thanks for reading this shorter newsletter! I hope you enjoyed it. I feel like my newsletters keep getting longer and longer, which makes it hard to publish regularly, so it’s nice to write a shorter one every once in a while.
I have a few posts planned out for the coming weeks (or as soon as I get around to publishing them). I will eventually post the second half of my “25 lessons to live by at age 25.” (I loved all the messages I got about that one. I’m thrilled y’all liked it. It felt a little different than what I usually do, which is always nice when it pays off.)
But before I post that, I’m going to be posting a very special newsletter. It’s about a milestone I’ve been working towards for two and a half years. I’m super excited to share it with you.
Subscribe if you want to see that, and I’ll see you in the (super-special!) next one. ❤️
yay
Ever hear the story of the doves font? Pretty interesting random little piece of history: https://typespec.co.uk/doves-type-revival/