For years I’ve had ideas rattling through my head of things I want to do in my life. For the first time I’ve written my Life List to help me focus on achieving these life goals. This list is not static, it will grow and evolve as I do so I expect to continually change the goals that appear on it as I go through life. There are also a few goals on there that I achieved in the past as I felt it was important to include goals that I would be looking to do now if I hadn’t already achieved them. Anyway I hope you are able to draw some inspiration from my list and I’m always open to new suggestions!
Sport & Adventure
1. Bag all 284 Munros – 13 bagged to date (watch ‘A Munro Bagging Microadventure’)
2. ✓ Climb a mountain in the snow – 20.02.11 (watch ‘A Microadventure in Snowdonia‘)
3. Climb into the crater of a volcano
4. Climb Mont Blanc
5. Climb Mount Elbrus
6. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro
7. ✓ Crawl through the ‘wormhole’ (again) – 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
8. Cycle across a country
9. ✓ Do a bungee jump – Aug 2005
10. ✓ Do a skydive – 03.11.02
11. ✓ Enter a lion pen – Dec 2004
12. ✓ Fly a plane – Nov 2002
13. Free dive over 5m in the sea
14. ✓ Go on a balloon flight – 23.08.11 (read ‘Balloon Flights: Just Full of Hot Air?’)
15. Go scuba diving
16. ✓ Go wild swimming – 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
17. Jump the world’s highest bungee
18. Learn to rock climb – taking lessons
19. Learn to ski – had first lesson
20. Overcome my fear of deep open water
21. ✓ Play a new team sport – 19.09.11 (Korfball)
22. ✓ Play curling – 15.10.11 (read ‘Curling – The Greatest Sport in the World?’)
23. ✓ Play in an 11-a-side football game – 08.12.11 (read ‘Football’s Greatest Grudge Match’)
24. Raft from source to sea
25. Raft the length of a Scottish loch
26. ✓ Ride a horse – 21.09.11
27. Ride a motorcycle
28. ✓ Ride in a fire engine – Nov 2004
29. Ride the Severn bore
30. Score a century in a cricket match
31. Trek through the Himalayas
32. ✓ Try archery – 08.07.12 (read ‘Segway and SkyBow‘)
33. ✓ Watch the sun rise on a mountain top – 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
Travel & Leisure
34. Backpack around South America
35. Bathe in a natural spa
36. ✓ Be an extra in a film – 02.03.12 (a zombie in The Eschatrilogy)
37. ✓ Be in a TV programme audience – 07.05.12 (Bang Goes the Theory)
38. Break a world record
39. ✓ Drive a tractor – 31.08.11 (read ‘Tractor Driving: Only for the Country Folk?’)
40. ✓ Go on safari – Aug 2005
41. Go on safari in the Serengeti
42. ✓ Go sledging – 04.02.12
43. ✓ Go to a classical music concert – 19.10.12
44. ✓ Go to a music festival – 08.06.12 (‘No Direction Home’ festival)
45. Print my photos onto canvas
46. Ride on top of a train
47. Shower in a waterfall
48. ✓ Sit and paint a scene – 26.08.12
49. ✓ Sleep under the stars – 01.10.11 (read ‘The Wormhole, Bridge Jumping & Sleeping Under the Stars’)
50. ✓ Spend a day taking photos of my city – 26.02.12 (chose London as I’ve spent all year photographing Sheffield!)
51. Spend a week on a deserted tropical island
52. ✓ Take a photo every day for a year – 04.10.12 (watch ‘A Year in Photos‘ video)
53. Travel First Class on a plane
54. ✓ Travel inside the Arctic Circle – 22.06.12 (watch ‘Hitchhiking to the Arctic Circle‘ video)
55. Travel into space
56. Trek in the Amazon Rainforest
57. ✓ Visit Auschwitz – March 2005 (read ‘Polska Jest Rajem: Poland is Paradise’)
58. Watch every Best Picture Academy Award winning movie
Friends & Family
59. Ask a friend to write a random goal I must complete (Recreate Team GB’s finest moments)
60. ✓ Be a best man – July 2004
61. Buy a house with land
62. Get a dog
63. Get married
64. Keep bees
65. Keep chickens
66. Learn more about my ancestors
67. ✓ Play ‘Come Dine with Me’ with friends – 21.08.12
68. Play a practical joke on someone
69. Start a family
70. Start a vegetable garden
71. Throw a big house warming party
Personal Development
72. Become proficient in photography – underway & ongoing
73. Create something out of wood
74. Learn a magic trick
75. Learn survival and put it into practice
76. Learn to say ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and ‘cheers’ in 30 languages – underway & ongoing (see this post for the translations to do this yourself)
77. ✓ Learn to solve a Rubic’s cube – 19.07.12
78. Read at least 10 classic novels
79. Undertake Mountain Leader training
80. Write a poem
Career & Finance
81. ✓ Appear in a newspaper regarding my own business (read ‘Game On for Career Ideas’)
82. Appear on the radio regarding my own business
83. Appear on television regarding my own business
84. ✓ Earn a living from my own business – underway and ongoing
85. Get out of my overdraft (and stay out!)
86. ✓ Patent an invention – 25.08.11 (read ‘My First Invention: Career Detectives‘)
87. ✓ Create my own blog – 03.10.11
88. Become financially independent by the time I’m 40
89. See Goalvanise achieve 100,000 members
90. Be flown all expenses paid to a meeting in another country
91. ✓ Be the director of a company by the time I’m 30 – 24.03.09 (aged 26 – now been director of 4 companies before 30)
92. ✓ Work abroad for more than a year – Oct 2004 – Nov 2005 (read ‘Polska Jest Rajem: Poland is Paradise’ or ‘South Africa: The World in One Country’)
93. ✓ Buy & run a pub – 01.04.09 (The Riverside on behalf of Point Blank Theatre)
94. Buy a boat I can take on the open sea
Community
95. Actively boycott my blacklisted companies – underway & ongoing (see ‘Every Little Hurts: Why to Boycott Tesco…’ for one of these companies)
96. ✓ Give blood regularly – underway & ongoing
97. ✓ Go vegetarian for a month – 31.01.12
98. Make the world a better place – underway & ongoing
99. Mentor someone – underway & ongoing
100. Plant a tree
101. Start recycling – underway & ongoing
102. Volunteer on a community project at least once a year – underway & ongoing
103. Organise a community project in Johannesburg townships
104. ‘Pay it Forward’ to 3 people
105. ✓ Run a Cultural Education Project in the UK – May 2007
106. Organise another Cultural Education Project
107. ✓ Organise a protest march – Oct 2005
Health & Fitness
108. Exercise on average 3 times per week – ongoing
109. Run a half marathon in less than 1h 30min
110. Run a marathon – training for the London Marathon 2012
111. Give up high methane emitting meat (beef & lamb) – underway & ongoing
112. Catch, kill and prepare a fish
113. Drink a yard of ale at Oktoberfest
114. ✓ Eat at a Michelin star restaurant – 27.02.12
115. Pick and eat wild mushrooms
116. Brew my own beer
Jon Maiden 
LOVE LOVE LOVE your list Jon!
I blog about my bucket list too
I currently have over 260 items on my list and am over half way there (though it is growing all the time, and you’ve given me some great inspiration!)
So far I have managed to do so much in the 18 months I’ve been blogging including:
Fly through the Grand Canyon in a Helicopter
Sky-dive for the hospice who nursed my father in his dying days
Wing-Walk
Go Zorbing
Visit the Big Buddha in Thailand
See the Temple of Karnak in Egypt
Take my 5 year old daughter to visit the REAL Santa in Lapland
Take my children to Disney
Watch a cirque du Soleil Show
Ride a dune buggy through the desert
Drive a Quad bike through the desert
Go snorkelling in the Red Sea
See Tutankhamun’s tomb and Mummy
Go to the Maldives
Go Wacky Racing – in a bed, a double decker car, a road-legal desk and a sofa!
Go Bungee Jumping in Thailand
Take my family Indoor Sky-Diving
Stay in a Tipi on a working Ranch by the Grand Canyon
Visit Las Vegas
Ride the rides at the Top of The Stratosphere
Learn to fly a helicopter
Learn to fly aerobatics
Go caving in a kayak in Thailand with my family
Experience Weightlessness
Zip-line from the top of Red Mountain in Nevada
Hike through the Valley of Fire,
Visit the Island of Phi Phi
See the Statue of Liberty
Go to a camping Music Festival
Attend the 8 week course in Mindfulness
This year I am staying in an Ice hotel,
Hopefully seeing the Northern Lights
Going on Safari in Kenya, Africa
Visiting an African Orphanage,
Seeing The Masai Mara
Watching Fuerzabruta
Going to Glastonbury
Taking my sons for a helicopter ride
Flying in a Hang-glider!
It’s amazing what we can achieve when we set our intentions!
Thanks Emma. It’s lovely to read through your own list, and the touching inspiration behind it. Wonderful to see you making the very most of life though – as you said “growing old is not a birth right, it is a privilege.” Too few of us understand this.
I actually saw your article in the Mail a long time ago. I’ve had it bookmarked all this time to write about once we launch Goalvanise (we’ve launched the blog but not the main site yet). I’d still really like to write a feature about you if you’re interested? Check out goalvanise.com/blog to see the types of posts we’re writing and for more info on Goalvanise (which will enable people to create their Life List online and support them to achieve their goals).
It’s also great that you commented on my Life List as it’s prompted me to read through these goals again – it’s been too long since I did that! At present I’m focusing a lot on getting my businesses off the ground and my 10 Challenges 4 Cancer. But it’s a nice reminder to not let other life goals slip.
Anyway, thanks again for reading through my list and blog – I’m eagerly following yours now too and hopefully may be able to write about your achievements in the near future if you’re up for it…
Jon
Hey Jon,
I love your blog, and have been inspired to start my own. Your ideas/comments/suggestions would be highly appreciated:
http://ummisbucketlist.blogspot.com