Create Your Own Luck with a Bucket List

Besides following my spin-off list, which allows me to experience 12 different lifestyles in one year, I also like to keep a classic bucket list. Writing down my goals and dreams helps me to achieve them one at a time.

Young woman writing bucket list on wall

A couple of years back, as part of an exercise in The 4-Hour Workweek, I wrote the following 5 goals and dreams down on a piece of paper:

  1. Go to India
  2. Be a TMF VJ
  3. Start my own company
  4. Invite my parents to an exotic destination
  5. Travel around the world

At the time of writing, these wishes seemed bold and out of reach. The other day though, when I accidentally stumbled upon this piece of paper, I realized that my 5 dreams had become realities. With a dash of luck and a pinch of magic, I had managed to do it all.

I went to India with my best friend, started an online marketing company with Mr. G, invited my parents to Mexico, and I lived and traveled abroad for more than 2 years. As for being a TMF VJ, I guess the following picture says it all, check.

Woman presenting Dutch TV show "TMF VJ for a Day"

I’ve almost no choice but to believe that good luck was on my side in making all these things happen. So by all means, if you have some great wishes too, write them down and leave it to luck. Who knows? Maybe they come true. I can’t promise you that this will work though, but the following just might.

Create your own luck with a bucket list

Creating a bucket list and working on it will help you achieve your dreams and goals one at a time. When you take responsibility for your life and you actively work on your dreams, you create your own luck. Like Coleman Cox said:

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.

It’s in your power to create the life you want. And if you get a little overwhelmed by your own dreams, just remember the following words by Richard Bach:

You’re never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true.

Creating your own luck is a lot more effective than waiting for it to come to you.

Still, it’s not always work work and no magic. Sometimes, we don’t have to actively go after our dreams and good luck kicks in anyway.

Like with my dream to go to The States, which just happened to happen when Mr. G got a new job. In the meantime though, I achieved more goals without waiting for good luck.

By creating a bucket list, we allow for luck and magic to find us, but even if it doesn’t, we’re able to make our own dreams come true.

The Bucket List

Creating a bucket list and following it is all about living life to the fullest and experiencing everything life has to offer.

With this in mind, here’s my own bucket list. It includes challenges that help me improve particular skills while others are on it purely for fun.

I regularly update this list, adding new challenges and ticking off completed ones. Where possible, follow the links to see how I did with each of them.

  1. Read 100 Business Books
  2. Interview my parents
  3. Write a testament
  4. Go minimal
  5. Live in NYC - I only visited NYC, but it was enough for me to know that I wouldn’t want to live there.
  6. Learn to make a Thai and Indian curry from scratch
  7. Run a 10K race - Green Corridor Run 2016, Singapore – BIB #F8887 – 10.5K in 58:40
  8. Complete Kayla’s 12-week Bikini Body Program
  9. Master new hair and makeup skills
  10. Improve reading speed - I tried Timothy Ferriss’s speed reading method and Legentas’s online speed reading course, but unfortunately, neither seem to have produced lasting results.
  11. Do a Photoshop course
  12. Learn HTML + CSS
  13. Bring Mr. G to the Maldives - Initially, I wanted to take Mr. G to India, but he beat me to it
  14. Go back to Jordan with my mom and find the falafel of my childhood memories
  15. Watch all the Star Wars movies
  16. Pick up longboarding again
  17. Learn to draw anything
  18. Learn to do a cartwheel
  19. Learn to juggle limes
  20. Learn to whistle with my fingers

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Tell me what you think. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (links match comment pages for this post) and let me know: Do you have a bucket list? What’s on it? Is there anything you would like to see added to my list? I’m all in for being a human guinea pig.

FURTHER READING

Find out what’s it like to be a kiteboarder, philanthropist or entrepreneur for a month.