Category Archives: Inspiration

These posts give you the extra kick to get going on your goals

Our Crazy Round-The-World Itinerary

Thirty places and 148,390 miles – those are the numbers for the new travel itinerary I planned with the help of the members in The Goal List Community.

Okay… it’s not a real trip. But it’s fun to see anyway.

In August, I posted a game in the community (we’re on Facebook, you should join!), asking members to come up with names of places that started with the letter that the previous location ended with. For example, Alabama -> Anchorage -> Eiffel Tower…

Over the next few days, members replied with locations around the world. As promised, I put them all on a map (I used a site called Tripline, which I hadn’t heard of before but I’ll definitely look into it more in the future).

Here’s the full map, which you can click to go to the interactive one. Use the arrows below the map to see each of the stops one by one (if you can’t see the picture, click here to go to the map).

I know this kind of thing isn’t really how most of us will plan a trip, but it’s a fun game to play while you’re waiting for the next (real) trip to happen.

Although… some people choose vacation destinations by throwing darts at maps, or by spinning a globe and randomly stopping it. Would you use something like this game to plan your itinerary?

I can also see it working as a group icebreaker, or maybe in a hostel when you’re making friends (no wifi needed: grab a real map of the local area, limit the locations to places on whatever map you have access to, and draw the lines between locations by hand).

And when you do have wifi, check out The Goal List Community, a free Facebook group for those who love bucket listing, travel, and goal achievement, and want to support and be supported in their goals and adventures.

Shoutout to Tina, Carla, Salim, Lara, Aditi, Ashley, and Sara for helping create this itinerary!

Tarantulas feel like puppies: I face my spider fear at the Woodland Park Zoo

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Puppies!! (cue the “awww….”) Aren’t you glad I chose these puppies instead of a picture of a tarantula?

We’re standing in the “Authorized Personnel Only” room in Bug World at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, surrounded by hundreds of bugs in containers big and small, waiting to see if I’ll freak out.

I’m a little afraid of spiders. Not to the point where I’m terrified to be in the same room as them (I used to be!), but I definitely get nervous when there’s one close by. I think about how creepy they feel, and how gross it is to walk into a web, and that escalates to being sure that I’ll get bitten.

It’s irrational. But that’s what fear does. It takes the smallest possibility of reality and turns it into a horrible scene from a bad sci-fi or fantasy monster movie, where the spiders are three times bigger than a car and attack people as food.

So, because of this media-induced fear, during the 31 Days of Everyday Adventure challenge, when it comes time to do the activity that says, “Make plans to do the thing you’re afraid of,” I think of spiders.

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Summer Bucket List 2017

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Every year, my summer bucket list gets shorter and shorter, but this year I’m finally facing the facts: it has to be super short or not done at all. It’s obvious that I don’t do too many things on a summer bucket list.

Although I’ve had my full list since 2003, I’ve only been making summer lists the last three years.

2014: the first year, with a whopping 25 things (I did 7)
2015: again, 25 things (but this time I only did 3)
2016: last year, trying to be realistic with “only” 15 things (I did 4, and learned a 5th was illegal, so I didn’t do that one)

I’m all for ambitious goals, but I also like to balance it with some progress, which usually comes from a solid understanding of reality.

My reality is that I’m not willing to eliminate all other summer activities just to do the things on this list (this is in line with my overall goal of having non-obsessed bucket listing life balance and allowing space for spontaneous activity).

However, I still like the idea of having a smaller subset of my existing list (plus a few special things added just for summer), because it makes summer feel special in a way that’s somewhat challenging to do, now that I’m out of school and don’t have summer break anymore.

So… my much abbreviated (and way more realistic) 2017 Summer Bucket List has all of… 7 things on it!

(This list will be updated throughout the summer using the same key as the full list: bold = completed; linked = link to the post about it; * = in progress.)

Summer Bucket List 2017

Ride a motorcycle
Learn to make paper flowers
Look out the window of a room in the top floor of a downtown skyscraper
Have a picnic
Eat rabbit
Write 3 posts for this blog on previously accomplished bucket list items
Organize my bedroom so it’s a restful space

What do you think of choosing fewer goals in order to get more accomplished? Do you have a summer bucket list? What are some of the things you have on yours?