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Milestone One: Ignite Your Dream
Waymarker 1: Define Your Dream
My Journey
When I decided to give up my desk job and daily commute, I knew that I wanted to do something more active and adventurous. Ideas for adventures flooded into my head as butterflies took flight in my stomach.
Sailing around the world, dancing in Cuba, walking England’s South West Coast Path, motorcycling the length of Chile, taiko drumming in Japan and cycling around the Baltic Sea have all been on my bucket list for years, along with many other things.
Long ago, I realised I would not be able to do everything that I want to; life is just too short. I had an ever-expanding bucket list and an ever-shrinking amount of time left. I had a choice. I could do nothing, prioritise my list, or pick something at random. If I prioritised my list, I could tackle the most attractive or time-critical item first.
I started by filtering the list against a few deal-breakers.
I knew that early success would spur me on, so I wanted to complete my first adventure within a year. I also did not want to be away from my husband for long. I was not going to squander our relationship in exchange for adventure. Leaving Mike for more than a few weeks did not seem right or fair.
So, I filtered out the items that did not meet these requirements. They remain on my list to consider next time – this filter was only for this adventure.
Some things on my list were similar to each other, and it made sense to tackle one of those before the others. There is a piece of piano music called Journey to Nidaros that Alexander Chapman Campbell wrote as he walked St Olav’s Way from Oslo to Trondheim. I now have a strong desire to walk the same route, so it features prominently on my bucket list.
Back in my twenties, I had a similar reaction to reading 500 Mile Walkies about a man who walked the South West Coast Path. I had wanted to walk the path ever since.
As I live in the UK and had never hiked or camped on my own before, it seemed sensible to walk the South West Coast Path before tackling St Olav’s Way. Doing that would develop my backpacking confidence in a country I was familiar with. St Olav’s Way could wait for another year.
The next step was to identify other criteria that were important to me and score each option against them. I considered how excited I was by the idea, how much I would grow as a person, how much adventure I would have, whether there were any options to have a positive social impact and the level of environmental impact associated with doing each item.
Of all my bucket list dreams, walking the South West Coast Path won hands down. As well as the adventure and physical challenge, I could talk to people about protecting our oceans and raise money for a good cause. I chose the Marine Conservation Society.
I imagined strolling along the clifftops, admiring the view and drinking in the fresh sea air day after day, pleased at last to be achieving my long-held dream.
I would breathe in tune with the gentle pulse of waves breaking on the shore. I would talk to people as I walked, collecting donations and stories. I would see dolphins, seals and basking sharks. I would eat seafood, freshly caught that day and full of flavour. I would collect more stories as I stayed in interesting places.
It would take almost two months, but my husband would be able to join me for a few days here and there, and I would be able to complete the walk within the next six months. I would return rejuvenated and refreshed, bursting with life and full of stories to share. In short, I was pretty excited by the idea.
If your bucket list is longer than a couple of items and you try to progress everything at once, you will not be able to give any of those things the energy and focus that it needs. You are more likely to feel overwhelmed and far less likely to succeed. Filtering and prioritising your bucket list allows you to focus on your most compelling dream and start your journey.
Now it was time to define my challenge more clearly. I was going to walk England’s South West Coast Path in June and July 2020. I would walk by myself, although I would be open to other people joining me for sections of the path. I would stay in places with beds rather than carrying a tent. I would talk to people about the importance of protecting our oceans, and I would raise £10,000 for the Marine Conservation Society.
Walking 630 miles would be a stretch, and raising that much money would be challenging, but neither was impossible. The idea excited me and met all the requirements I had identified during the filtering and prioritising process.
Of course, things did not quite turn out like that — they never do — but I had at least decided which dream to pursue and defined it clearly.
Defining your dream well gives you clarity over what you are trying to achieve. The SMART model can help with this:
Specific
It can be difficult to plan for vague dreams. For example, I could have defined my dream as ‘to walk a long-distance footpath’. That might mean five miles or 500. It might mean all in one go, or over the next 20 years. It is far too vague to turn into any sort of meaningful plan.
You can make the definition of your dream more specific by considering the five W’s – what you want to do, who will be involved, where you will do it, when you will do it, and why you want to do it.
Measurable
How will you know when you have achieved your goal?
You can break down larger goals into stages to measure progress as you go along, rather than just at completion. This will help you to check whether you are heading in the right direction or need to make a course correction. This process is covered in Waymarker 4.
One thing that I think is particularly important to understand is that measuring success should be on your own terms. Living your bucket list is about doing something for yourself, not to please someone else.
Some purists think that walking the South West Coast Path means following the line of the path exactly. In some places, I deviated from the path because the route was not clear. In others, I had to walk inland because I was at risk of being blown off the cliffs.
Those purists would say that I did not complete the path. I don’t care what they think! I walked from one end of the path to the other, following it as closely as I sensibly could. I was walking to achieve my dream, not theirs, and was successful on my own terms. This is not the time to do things because other people think that you should, but because you think you should.
Attainable
I recommend that you start by choosing a dream that is achievable within a few months. This will give you an early win that will encourage you to tackle more challenging dreams in the future. If you do choose a BHAG (a big, hairy, audacious goal) that will take years to achieve, you can always break it down into smaller SMART goals so that you can see yourself making progress.
Relevant
Your dream needs to align with your values – it needs to matter to you. If you have filtered and prioritised your dream effectively, you can be confident that it already meets this criterion.
Timely
An ambitious but realistic deadline for completing your dream will help you to maintain focus and motivation.
Review
You have reached the ‘Define your Dream’ waymarker if you have:
- Documented your bucket list.
- Filtered your list.
- Prioritised your list.
- Decided which dream to pursue.
- Defined that dream using the SMART model.
If you have taken all these steps, then you have done some great work and are ready to move on to the next waymarker. Congratulations! Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You have started your journey towards living your bucket list.
I hope that you have had some fun thinking about your dreams like this and that you are excited to move on to the next step. It is normal to be a little nervous at this stage too. After all, if you are going to grow while achieving your dreams, you are bound to feel a bit of discomfort.
I was certainly nervous when I started on my journey — I had never done anything like this on my own before. But I was also excited to find out how it would unfold.
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.