18 Complete, 10 Underway & Ongoing, 22 Still to Achieve…
On 23rd August 2011 I started on a journey to achieve 50 Goals in a Year. Why 23rd August? Why not! There is no wrong time to start achieving your life goals and I don’t believe in waiting around for ‘someday’. The aim of the list is to help me live every day to the full and achieve far more of my life goals. Most of these are on my main Life List and they represent a wide range of challenges across all aspects of my life – some obviously far more difficult than others. I don’t want people to be able to say that you can only achieve life goals with money so I have intentionally made it so that each of these goals can be completed with less than £100 – and many for free.
Completed (most recently completed at the top)
- Be an extra in a film – 02.03.12 (a zombie in The Eschatrilogy)
- Climb a mountain in the snow - 20.02.12 (Snowdon)
- Go sledging - 04.02.12
- Appear in a newspaper – 31.01.12 (read ‘Game On for Career Ideas’)
- Go vegetarian for a month - 31.01.12
- Play in an 11-a-side football game - 08.12.11 (read ‘Football’s Greatest Grudge Match’)
- Climb the highest mountain in the UK - 28.10.11 (watch ‘A Munro Bagging Microadventure’)
- Bag my first 10 Munros - 27.10.11 (watch ‘A Munro Bagging Microadventure’)
- Play curling - 15.10.11 (read ‘Curling – The Greatest Sport in the World?’)
- Crawl through the ‘wormhole’ (again) - 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
- Go wild swimming - 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
- Sleep under the stars - 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
- Watch the sun rise on a mountain top - 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
- Ride a horse - 21.09.11
- Try a new team sport - 19.09.11 (Korfball)
- Drive a tractor - 31.08.11 (read ‘Tractor Driving: Only for the Country Folk?’)
- Patent an invention - 25.08.11 (read ‘My First Invention: Career Detectives’)
- Go on a balloon flight - 23.08.11 (read ‘Balloon Flights: Just Full of Hot Air?’)
- Actively boycott my blacklisted companies
- Become proficient in photography
- Earn a living from my own business
- Exercise on average 3 times per week
- Give blood regularly
- Learn to say ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and ‘cheers’ in 30 languages (see this post for the translations to do this yourself)
- Make the world a better place
- Mentor someone
- Start recycling
- Take a photo every day for a year - see Month 1, Month 2, Month 3, Month 4
- Appear on the radio
- Be in a TV programme audience
- Challenge my fear of deep water
- Create something out of wood
- Get out of my overdraft
- Go to a classical music concert
- Go to a music festival
- Learn a magic trick
- Learn to solve a Rubic’s cube
- Plant a tree
- Play a practical joke on someone
- Play ‘Come Dine with Me’ with friends
- Run a marathon
- Raft from source to sea
- Score another half century in cricket
- Sit and paint a scene
- Spend a day taking photos of my city
- Take climbing lessons
- Try archery
- Try skiing
- Volunteer on a community project
- Write a poem
Nice list:) I have some of those also on my list, not that I have a proper list like this.
How come you don’t have “underway & on-going” for item no 43? If you haven’t started, then you’re already too late to achieve it. Oh, and I could have taught you no 26…
Hi Terje,
Thanks for your message. You have read it in detail to notice the problem with ‘take a photo every day for a year’ goal! I did actually start this on 23rd August but I found that, with only my phone to take pictures on, it was a very uninspired set of photos. I’ve now got an SLR camera so have started again as of yesterday. So technically I won’t be able to complete within the year but if I keep it up until next August I’ll be well on the way! I always wanted to solve a Rubic’s cube ever since I was very young – have looked at some tutorials online but it’s still very complex. Did you have help or are you one of those geniuses who can just pick one up and complete it? Very jealous if so!
You should write your list – you’ll be far more likely to achieve your life goals once they are written down. I suspect you’re already living a few of them though
Goalvanise will be launching soon – hopefully that could tempt you to get writing…
Hope you’re well,
Jon
Great list Jon, would love to do Ben Nevis and 10 Murrows myself. I’ve donw Snowdon and Cadair in Wales, but still have many sumits I want to find in Wales alone.
I like your concept of “to do in 1 year” it brings an element of time to it, where if you didn’t have it we mmight drag things out too long until we never get the chance.
I may adopt this myself, and each year, set myself a new set of goals, perhaps from my birthday onwards?
I’m 30 in 2012, so was thinking of doing a ’30′ theme where by I do 30 things or use 30 as a criteria, like run 30 miles, climb 30 mountains over 600m etc.
Hi James,
Yes I can’t recommend Munro Bagging highly enough – as you’ll see from my microadventure video it was an experience hard to surpass. Snowdonia is next on the list for me actually – some great ridge walks there apparently.
The 50 Goals in a Year has really worked out well. I’ve achieved life goals that otherwise I’d have just been waiting for ‘someday’ to complete. It really is a fantastic incentive and I plan to have a 50 Goals list every year from now on. Your “30″ themed lists sound like a great idea – particularly the 30 miles, 30 mountains etc – that could become a really interesting and inspiring list of accomplishments.
I looked through your site – brilliant work. Really inspiring. And I love the photography! I look forward to following your progress in completing the goals on your life list… and seeing what 2012 has in store!
Jon