Rethink the Bucket List
Adding ingredients doesn’t always make the soup better. Sure, a little salt can bring out the flavor, and somehow bouillabaisse, the classic French fish and seafood soup, does work. But when it comes to living your best life, sometimes less is more.
Don’t get us wrong, at Vector, we love goals. We build financial plans around goals. Do you have travel aspirations? Saving for a second home? Or want to retire by a certain age? Great. Let’s talk about how, where, and when.
Your goals while saving for retirement may not be the same goals in retirement.
Twenty years ago, in your working years, the idea of cruising the coast in a Catalina 30 sailboat sounded romantic and adventurous. But now your lifestyle has you traveling in the summer and skiing Steamboat in the winter. Life is still romantic and adventurous it is just different than you thought. You know more now. It’s okay to let go of some goals to make others possible.
Arthur C Brooks, Harvard Professor and author of From Strength To Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, And Deep Purpose In The Second Half Of Life, says he used to have a bucket list. He would look at all his cravings, goals, and attachments to fire up his ambition. Finding motivation in the next bucket list item. But basically, this exercise just made him feel unaccomplished for everything he hadn’t done.
Brooks discusses the idea of a reverse bucket list. A reverse bucket list is where you take off past aspirations that no longer serve you. Each year, instead of adding a new grand pursuit or object to attain, take something off the list. By prioritizing or saying no, you lighten your load.
What it takes to “make it” can be a moving target.
The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of people to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. Some consider Brickman and Campbell’s original research, published in the essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971), as being fatalistic—if contentment returns to the baseline, why chase rainbows? New research is showing that the steady-state average can shift.
When sorting your bucket list, these practices may help you decide what to keep and what to let go:
Reflect on and appreciate the events and circumstances that changed your life.
Immerse yourself in activities that put you in a state of flow,
Investing in relationships.
Our goals and priorities can change over time. While it's great to have aspirations and work towards them, it's also okay to let go of goals that no longer serve you and prioritize what truly matters. We believe that by reflecting on our past experiences, engaging in activities that bring us joy, and investing in our relationships, we can cultivate a sense of purpose and fulfillment in our lives.
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