I love reading life lists/bucket lists; I find them fascinating and inspiring in equal measure.
Reading this one at Where is Jenny over the weekend, and Sean Ogle’s at Location 180 a few weeks ago, has made me do a lot of thinking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t push myself enough.
Now I’m not saying that I want to jump out of aeroplanes or go deep sea diving {oh the terror!} I just want to go out there and do ‘it’ a bit more; does this make sense?
This is not just about travel, although there is a whole big world out there and I want to see more of it, it’s about daily life too; there is so much more I [we] can do. I want to start my own business and all I’ve done so far is procrastinate, there’s no excuse. I look at Tony’s list {now there’s someone who challenges himself} and I know that I could do more.
What about you, do you challenge yourself enough?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Laura, thanks for the link! I think you are right, I think generally we don’t challenge ourselves enough. It seems to me that it’s when the challenge is tough, we pull ourselves up to meet it. I’m really seeing this with training for the Windsor half, where I’ve basically had to fit my entire training for the Half into two weeks due to an injury. It’s really challenging me on my training and diet. Sometimes I fail to meet my goals, sometimes I succeed – hopefully on average I will succeed more than I fail. Looking back on my life I see it’s when I’ve set myself a challenging goal that I have grown most as a person.
I wish you luck with your own challenging goals (although you have set yourself a few tough ones already), and am really looking forward to reading your own bucket list!
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Laura Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Tony: thank you, you’re so right. I hadn’t really thought about it before but if something becomes challenging I will rise to surmount it; but that’s not the same as setting my own tough challenge and achieving it; food for thought….and good luck with the half marathon..there’s something that won’t be on my bucket list. lol
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Hi Laura,
One of the things I’m learning is that while challenging myself is good, it seems to be best to challenge myself in areas where I have a strength to begin with and therefore don’t require that much self-discipline. (IOW, not on house cleaning so much – lol). Since research has shown that people literally only have a certain amount of self-discipline, it’s best not to waste it on things that you don’t want really badly.
Thanks for the link to http://www.regardsfromthebalcony.com – loved his site and love his goals – short, sweet, easy to focus on.
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Laura Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Jacq: Yes Tony’s site is great.
I think we all have our strengths and weaknesses and so yes it makes sense to send all that self discipline towards something you really, really want to achieve..me and weight loss springs to mind
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I used to think that I didn’t do enough. I remember being at Iguassu Falls on my South America backpacking adventure and having an epiphany. I remembered the blog I was reading when I wrote it down on my list and then realizing that 6 or so years later, I was there experiencing it. I realized that I have done a lot of things and when I looked at my Bucket List I had already crossed so many of them off. I had already done more than so many people in the USA would ever do… but yet it wasn’t enough for me because I knew I was capable of so much more. I don’t think I’ll ever stop, I like a challenge.
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Laura Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Jenny: yes, it makes sense to look back on what we’ve achieved already; sometimes we can focus too much on what is still to do and forget how far we’ve already come. Thank you for your comment
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Yes you are right: we must all be careful not to become complacent; otherwise, we become satisfied with so much less than what we could have and experience. It’s sometimes so hard to even come to the realization that you are not pushing ourselves until we come into the presence of someone much more intense than us (like you mention in the post
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Laura Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 pm
@Roshawn: yes, I never want to feel like I’ve missed out
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Yep, it’s all true. As Roshawn commented above, I was complacent for a while and now realize how horrible it is. I’m just starting to come back to a more active fulfilling life now…
I want to travel, and start multiple businesses, and of course raise my kids well and cultured…
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Laura Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Money Reasons: Speaking for myself I know that I got complacent when I had my children, not in a bad way, however with them came contentment and I forgot about me in the process. Multiple businesses sounds intriguing?
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What inspires me the most is how specific these are… they’ve obviously done their research. Mine’s way too vague…
Nice blog by the way.
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