Bucket lists are for the dying ~
A Torch List is for the Vibrantly Alive
The term “Bucket List” always disturbed me. There’s an automatic association to death that gives us the excuse to put things off until “one day”, before you kick the bucket.
You don’t have to wait for a dramatic moment of potential death to finally live your desires. They don’t have to be put off until “someday”. Someday, when there’s time. Someday, where there’s money. Someday, before it’s too late.
The biggest problem is that “someday” is not a day. It never arrives on the calendar. A bucket list written during a non life threatening time will become a stagnant list of forgotten dreams.
A bucket list gives you permission to defer the things you most want and feel virtuous about it because at least you wrote them down.
What’s the alternative?
Make a “Torch List” instead! A list of things that “light your fire” and get you passionately excited.
Your Torch List should inspire and excite you. When you look over your list, make sure everything on it speaks to your heart and you yearn for these experiences. Push past your comfort zone and stretch your imagination.
This list will become your guiding light as you embrace more passion.
Start by exploring what you actually want
Most of us can talk for hours about all the things we don’t want. We can bitch and complain and find a million ways to justify why we’re stuck and why the things we desire aren’t possible.
We know what we’re supposed to want, what looks impressive and looks great on social media. We know what’s expected of us to achieve.
Sometimes we even mistake the expectations of others for our own desires.
Before you write anything down, sit with the real questions: What do you actually yearn to experience??? What would you regret never having done?
Did a few ideas bubble up? Things you’ve held close to your heart but were scared to admit you desire?
Write your first draft
One of the easiest ways to get to the meat of your desires is to let yourself “babble” on paper. Yes, real, actual paper and pen! Set aside at least 15 minutes by yourself and start writing. The little things, the big things. The things you think are silly or impossible. The things you’d be embarrassed to admit you want. Write it all out in no particular order. This isn’t the time to censor your writing or to analyze the how of the desires. You’ll do that later. Don’t worry about making sure you have absolutely everything. The list will grow and change as you do.
When you reread it, every item should produce a small pull in your chest. If something feels like an obligation rather than a desire, cross it off. This is your list, not a performance of ambition.
Dream without a limits, then act within them
Most advice about creating these types of lists pretends limitations don’t exist. The entire point of creating a Torch List is to actually DO the things you desire, not just dream about them.
When you’re writing the list, ignore cost and feasibility entirely. Don’t pre-edit your desires based on your current bank balance or skills. The things that genuinely call to you are almost always the ones that look impossible from where you’re standing today. If you could do them right this moment, you would’ve done them already.
When you start working though the list, the opposite rule applies: you begin exactly where you are, with what you currently have. Not in some better resourced future. Not in the past where you feel you should have started earlier.
Today. With this body, this schedule, this account balance.
Assess your list
Now you can analyze a bit. Look over your list and see if there are experiences that loop together nicely. Is there an overarching theme to some of them?
For example, do you desire to spend a lot of time outdoors, exploring beautiful landscapes? Are there several foreign countries you’d love to visit? Do your desires include other people or are they solo experiences? Are they loud and flamboyant or quiet and contemplative?
What do you want to FEEL? The biggest secret no one wants us to know is that none of our desires for material things or experiences are really about the things… the truest desire is how we think we’ll feel doing or having the things.
Group your items into similar categories and create your “final” starting list. Make your list as simple or as creative as you’d like. This list itself should bring a smile to your face when you look at it, It can become a simple written checklist or a document packed with pictures surrounded by swirls and glitter. Whatever fits your personality!
Make it impossible to ignore
A list you can’t see is a list you’ll forget. You’ll get the rush of excitement from creating your Torch List and then promptly move on to other distractions if it disappears into the sea of your every day “stuff”.
Put it somewhere you’ll “bump into it” daily. Whether that’s taped to the mirror so it’s staring back at you while you brush your teeth or set as your phone wallpaper so you see it every time you check your phone.
Turn your list into calendar entries
This is where things get really juicy. (and where many people fail).
Run each item on your list through three questions:
What can you do already, if you just made the time? Be honest with yourself. A surprising number of “someday” items aren’t blocked by money or ability. They’re blocked by obligations that you consider higher priorities. Anything that falls into this category goes straight into the calendar. A set date and a plan converts a desire into something you know is happening. Doing this also gives you the bonus feeling of excitement and anticipation.
What takes preparation? For items that can’t be immediately scheduled, what do you need to learn, acquire, or build before they are possible? Vagueness here is the enemy. Name the gap between where you are now and where you desire to be.
“Save up for the trip” is vague and will keep you stuck. Research exactly what you’d need to be able to put the trip on your calendar and then write down exactly how much you’d need to save each week to take the trip.
If you’re not sure about how to get from where you are to where you want to be, that’s where question 3 comes in.
Ask yourself: Has anyone else done this before? Unless it’s something absolutely, completely unheard of, the answer is yes! Find them! Books, websites, videos, a group forum, anyone you can message and ask questions. Ask how they got to where they are. Let their actions inspire you. Let other people share their own excitement and cheer you on.
Find the actions you can take today!
The trick with any intimidating goal is to find the smaller, accessible version of it that’s available to you right now. You don’t leap to the summit, you take the steps that point you there. and keep moving forward.
A few examples of moves you can make quickly:
Want to climb a tall mountain? You can’t rush to the summit this week, but you can find a climbing wall at a local gym, start training and join an online climbing community where you can learn what the questions are that you don’t yet know you need to ask.
Want to own a high-end sports car? Owning it may be years away, but you could rent one for a week, book a test drive, or ask a friend who already has one to take a ride. The experience you’re actually after might be closer than the ownership you assumed you needed.
Want to visit a country you’ve never been to? You can start by exploring maps of the country, learning the language, picking places you’d love to visit. You can also find restaurants that serve the foods native to that country and interact with the people who frequently eat there.
Focus on the Feelings
Your desires are desires for a reason. They’re the whispers of your heart speaking to you. They never really point at the thing, they’re pointing at the feeling you’re starving for.
The sports car isn’t about the car. It’s about feeling free, or speed, or the quiet “proof” that you made it.
The mountain isn’t about reaching a certain altitude. It’s about discovering you’re someone who doesn’t quit, or the feeling of awe that rushes over you when you’re staring across the vast expanse of an indescribable landscape.
The trip to a far away country isn’t about the plane ticket or the hotel. It’s about escape or remembering the world is enormous and you’re allowed to roam it. It’s about learning how other people view their part of that world and interact with it.
This matters more than you may think. Once you know the feeling living underneath a desire, two things happen.
First, you will be able to find faster, cheaper, closer ways to taste it right now. The feeling was never actually locked inside the experience, it’s available to you today.
Second, you can finally tell which desires are truly yours and which ones you picked up from someone else’s highlight reel.
Chase the feeling and the real desires blaze brighter. The borrowed ones quietly go cold.
So when you look at your Torch List, don’t just ask what do I want? Ask what will it let me feel… then go feed that fire today, in whatever ways you can.
Take pictures! Run a line through each item once it’s complete, Give yourself the gift of inspiration, matched with a physical record of how far you’ve come.
Each item you check off the list makes room for the next, bigger, bolder, deeper desire! Your Torch List isn’t a countdown to the end of your life. It’s a record of the one you’re actually living.
