So most of you readers know by now that my post titles are intended to, well, make you open up the email and read the post!  And so let me start this blog by saying that no, I am not recommending that you throw away your bucket list. Or at least, not entirely.

But let’s just think a little bit about those bucket lists.  You’ve been on vacation before, right? And, just like a retreat, once you got back, you were still you, right? So even after you go to all of places on your bucket list (assuming you do that), and experience everything you want to experience (sky diving, hiking K2, helping build houses in Indonesia, etc.), I would be willing to bet that you’d still be you when you got back. Still be living your “normal” life again.

Will a trip to Mongolia change you?

And if that life just isn’t measuring up, if you feel sort of blah and lifeless and like you’re just kind of trudging around in your days, then no trip to Iceland or to an ashram in India or to outer Mongolia (purely hypothetically here, and in no way a reflection of my own bucket list. Ahem.) is going to change that.

Make sure to get your merit badge!

I also want you to really think about why those items are on your bucket list. Is it so that you can say to others, “I’ve been there. I’ve done that.”? Will doing those things change who you are? Make you more sophisticated/cooler/more cultured/more spiritual? Different? Better, somehow?

For a long time, travel was a large part of my identity (and I still haven’t entirely kicked this one, I’ll admit.) I worked for an international airline and really took advantage of those flight benefits. Each place I went was like a little merit badge that I accumulated (Make sure to take lots of pictures! Get lots of souvenirs and cool jewelry to wear so that I could say, “Oh, that old thing? I just picked it up in Budapest.” )

Those trips meant that I mattered. That I was different, special. My ego just loved all of that specialness, that specialness that meant that I was better than others!

And I am different and special, of course. But so are you. And you. And you. And not because you’ve been to a bunch of cool places, but because of who you are being.

So while I still love to travel, and still have a bucket list a mile long, I know now that even if cross every one of them off of that list, I won’t be a different person. Changing my life, becoming happier with me and the person that I am, doesn’t come from some external source. Being happy won’t come from going back to school for my MBA (Accounting? Yuck.) Being happy doesn’t come from getting married, having kids (as anyone with kids will surely tell you!), buying a house, making six figures, or any other of the many ways that we try to define success.

Being happy, as you’ve already heard a million times, comes from within. But how do we know what that looks like? How do we know what will make us really happy?

The List of Your Dreams:

Here’s how. Time to write a different list. It’s called your dream list (aka the ideal life exercise), and though I’ve written about it before, I’m going to write about it again. (Because you probably didn’t put down the phone or turn away from the computer and do it last time, right? But one of these days, it will sink in, and you’ll think, hmm, maybe I should do that exercise Erin keeps blabbing on about…)

Ideal Life Exercise:

So here it is. This is a list of things (or use any format that you want) of all that you want to be doing and the kind of person that you want to be. Sit down for twenty minutes and write about the kind of life you would want to live if money were no object, if you didn’t have kids holding you back, if you didn’t have responsibilities or a mortgage or any adult worries.

There’s no need to edit this exercise or to try to define it with a specific title or role – your life will look like no one else’s! Also, you can do this list as often as you’d like, perhaps once per month or anytime you’re feeling stuck. It really helps to reset your values and figure out what truly aligns with you.

[On a side note, I recently did this exercise again and realized that I no longer want to take on new freelance writing clients – they weren’t any part of my dream life! But that’s a whole other blog…]

To get you started, what kind of fulfilling, meaningful things would you be doing as you went about your day? Who would you be surrounded by? What would your living situation look like? What would your work situation look like? Who would you be speaking with? How would you be getting exercise? What kinds of activities would you put into your ideal life? What would your relationships with others look like? Who would your ideal clients, bosses, customers, and coworkers be? What sights, smells, sounds, people, places, things, would be in this life?

Once you’ve done it, doesn’t that feel great? That’s a list we can really work towards!

Do you struggle with figuring out what you really want? Or do you know exactly what’s on your dream list? Let us know in the comments.

Want more manifesting + subconscious block stuff? (Yeah, it's awesome.)

YAY!

Check your inbox for your Guide!