Let me introduce to you this concept called a Life List. A Life List is simply a list of goals that you would like to do/achieve in your lifetime. They can be small goals like “Buy and share a great bottle of wine”, or lofty goals like “Become the Ultimate Fighting Champion within 5 years”. They can be whatever… they are your goals, but I think they should be things that inspire you; that make you become a better person; that take you on a new path you’ve never experienced before; or maybe even ones that have always been lurking in the back of your mind and always will be until you give them a shot.

The concept is nothing revolutionary. It’s been around since men began to dream and plan. A simple list of what you’d like to accomplish in your life. I would say that everyone has a list. It may not be on a sheet of paper, or on the computer, but it’s certainly in your head. You have dreams or ideas you’ve wanted to try. But the problem with keeping them in your head is that they sink into the background noise and you forget about them as you trudge through your daily routine until something comes along that makes you sit up and remember “Hey! I’ve always wanted to do that!”… but the timing may not be just right.

If you have all those goals written out and in front of you as a constant reminder, you begin to plan and think more about how some of them can be accomplished. You begin to keep an eye out for opportunities to achieve those goals. You begin to think often about what you really want out of life instead of just the daily tasks that are before you. Another great reason to have a written list, is that you can share it with others. They will see what is important in your life and will likely help you fulfill some of your dreams if they can. Here is my Life List.

But don’t think that achieving these goals is the main reason for creating this list and beginning to work on making them happen… It’s about the journey these goals take you on, not the goals themselves. When you pick any goal, let’s take “Buy and share a great bottle of wine”, you can easily see that the end result of finishing the bottle of wine isn’t the important thing. It’s about the sharing of something beautiful with a great friend, and what you learn about yourself and your friend as you talk and drink… in other words the journey that simple goal took you on. The road to the finish is where you grow as a person, not the crossing of the finish line.

If you write unclear or unattainable goals, you may become discouraged at not being able to achieve them. A great way to write a goal is to make sure it’s sufficiently specific to be clear when you’ve finished, make it something that is attainable, and give yourself a reasonable but relevant time limit.

• An example of a sufficiently specific goal would be instead of saying “Get Healthy”, to say “Trim down to 15% body fat”, or “Lose 20 lbs”, because what does Healthy mean?
• Attainable means something you can hope to achieve in your lifetime. It may not be attainable at this moment, but sometime in the future it could be. For instance “Fly on a rocket ship to Alpha Centauri” is unattainable, but “Become an astronaut within 10 years” could be attainable for many people.
• Finally, put on a time limit to give you something to strive for. It’s OK to change that time frame as needed, but if it’s just a nebulous goal sometime within the remaining years of your life, you might just wait too long.

Change those goals as often as you like. There is no reason to keep a goal on your list if you’ve changed your outlook on life and it’s just not important to you anymore. That’s part of the journey too. As you move down these paths of life, you’re going to become a different person and change in large or small ways. You may look back on an old list and chuckle at the person who wrote it… but don’t judge that ‘old’ you as they were doing the best they could and it was their choices which led to the person you have (or will) become.

I encourage you to start writing out your Life List now. Keep in updated as you change your goals or complete some of them, and have it somewhere you will see it often. It can change your life.

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