Having a ‘bucket list’ sounds like a decent thing to do.  

Since Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in the film ‘the bucket list’ and did things like Skydive, Visit the Taj Mahal and ride motorbikes on the great wall of China, I think we’ve got a romantic ideal of bucket lists. 

You see Bucket lists feel aspirational and growth focused. Now we’re got a bit more time on our hands our lives are going to be full of sunset’s, safaris and finally learning Spanish. 

But here’s the thing. Bucket lists also have a potential down side… 

The dangerous assumption with having a bucket list is that we start to believe that we’ll be happier when we tick everything off our list…however all the evidence points to the reality that this assumption is simply not true. 

I want to talk about where Bucket lists might be useful but why in addition to this having a ‘reverse’ bucket list or event an ‘anti bucket’ list might be just as valuable. 

In principle, I’ve got nothing against the bucket list. Personally, I think that having goals means that we take positive action towards things we want to do. 

However, I do think that creating a bucket list creates a challenge. We start to believe that happiness lies on the other side of ticking off things in your bucket list despite all of the evidence telling us other wise. 

There’s a great American author, academic and writer who has insight about this. Dr Arthur Brooks who is a professor at Harvard Business School runs their leadership and happiness laboratory and teaches people how to live lives with increased levels of wellbeing. 

Brooks, in this article (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/why-we-are-never-satisfied-happiness/621304/) talks about the challenges with the bucket list and how the rolling stones might have got it spot on when they sung… 

“You can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometimes you might just find…you get what you need!” 

One of the ways we might get what we need is to build our own reverse bucket lists… 

You see Brooks describes our satisfaction in life as simply our ‘haves’ divided by our ‘wants’. 

We can all increase our satisfaction by having more. By ticking more things off our bucket list and that does work to increase our satisfaction and why bucket lists aren’t an entirely bad idea. 

However Dr Brooks argues there’s another way. Simply wanting less! 

This means building a reverse bucket list. 

We can still having nice things and brilliant adventures in our lives…but by detaching our feeling of happiness from the achievement of these things will help us improve our wellbeing and provide us with a sense of freedom. 

The reverse bucket list concept is about writing down a bucket list but instead of only crossing them out when you acheive them, you cross them out when you realise you probably don’t need to do them to be happy. 

The reality is that we can choose to be grateful today. We can choose to be satisfied today. We can choose to be happy with our lives today…and I get that all of that isn’t particularly easy but it is possible. 

The reason for the reverse bucket list is realising that we might want to do loads in the ‘what happens next’ chapter of our lives (and there’s nothing wrong with that by the way)…but also understanding that we don’t need to in order to be happy. 

This is about ensuring that we’re managing our ambition and aspirations…and not letting these ambitions (and the fact we haven’t done them yet) have a negative impact on our own wellbeing. 

There’s a three minute interview with Brooks which explains the concept perfectly which you can find here… 

If you’re in your 50’s and 60’s and thinking about the next chapter of your life this is definitely worth three and half minutes of your time. 

You see a reverse bucket list isn’t a ‘stop living list’… 

It’s a way to consider that more of the thing we think we need…we actually just want. 

Both modern psychologists and ancient philosophies provide the insights to bucket lists and attachement. 

The stoics talked about controlling what you can, but not worrying about what you can’t…including what we can’t do immediately. 

The Buddhist talked about attachment a lot and the fact that wanting and doing nice things isn’t the problem, it’s the perception that doing these nice things are going to make you permanently happier when you do them. 

And  

Positive psychologists talk about the Hedonic treadmill and how our baseline happiness often come back to a normal level (for us!) after positive or negative events meaning that achievements do boost happiness temporarily, but not permanently. 

So, what small experiments what might we practically try to test these theories? 

The first one is to write out your own reverse bucket list… 

Spend 15 minutes writing the goals you think about the most. The ones that niggle and annoy. 

Then go through them and rub out the ones which are simply ‘wants’ and not ‘needs’. It doesn’t mean you won’t do them and enjoy them…it just means you’re not attached. 

Small experiment number two might be a consistent practice of gratitude. I spend three to five minutes ever morning listing things that I’m grateful for.  

What I’ve realised is that it’s often the simple stuff I’m most grateful for and whilst I still love a goal, it puts into perspective what I actually value. For me, it’s often being fortunate enough to be surrounded by amazing people and having freedom and flexibility in my life. 

Don’t get me wrong. Having goals and aspirations in my lives is still a good thing…but my practice of gratitude means that I’m more aware of the fact that I can be happy anyway. 

The other practical action might be the Anti Bucket list. Simply writing a list of things you don’t want to do. It’s less philisophical than the reverse bucket list, which is about removing attachement, but more practical, simply about removing the things you don’t want to spend your time doing. Here’s how it works… 

Write a list and at the top put the following… 

“The things I don’t want to do in the next chapter of my life” 

The things you include in your anti bucket lists might include… 

I don’t want to spend time with people who drain my energy. 

I don’t want to do work which I don’t love. 

Or 

I don’t want to make decisions in my life simply to impress people I don’t like. 

Then aim to do less of the things you’ve got on your anti bucket list to make the most of your time. 

So, the big question is… 

“What do you really want to do in the next chapter of your life…and what are you willing to detach yourself from?” 

I’d love to know your thoughts! Feel free to let me know what you think about the concept of anti-goals in the comments… 

If you’re looking for a few more tiny experiments to consider when thinking about ‘what happens next’ then this video might be useful. 

And 

For a perspective on attachment from the Taoists and how we can flow through life in a calmer way, this video might provide some additional useful insights.