Reading Time: 3 minutesWLC Mission is a weekly challenge, meant to improve your life by disrupting your day-to-day routine — taking you out of your comfort zone, asking you to try something new, and challenging you to become a more complete person. Never easy, you can consider the Mission an advanced experiment in personal wellness, with you as the star.
This Week’s Mission: A Bucket List for the Here and Now
The Idea
This week’s mission is to create a personal bucket list of the things you really want to do — and that you can actually take on today.
The Payoff
So many things in our lives get assigned to “someday” status. Ironically, or maybe even tragically, many of the things we assign to the future are the fun things — the things we really want to do, but are unable to convince ourselves belong ahead of what we should do. In truth, we should be doing the things that make us happy, light up our brains, and spark the embers in our hearts and souls.
A bucket list, as most of us think about it, is too much about the future. We often think, “Here are the things I want to do before I die.” But we also think about death as a very far-off thing. So while the theory of the bucket list is good — being an impetus to have us ponder on priorities, wants, and needs — it doesn’t always compel us to take action.
So what if instead we created a bucket list for the here and now? A bucket list for this week?
What can you do here in the present, in your actual life, that will bring you joy, take you on an adventure, and have you feel alive? Instead of having a bucket list that’s about “what to do before you die,” how about a bucket list that’s about “what to do to feel alive”?
And that right there is the “payoff” for this week — feeling alive in the here and now.
The Parameters
Grab a piece of paper and something to write with. List out four things you want to do. Take on one of those things this week.
These activities or objectives do not have to be complicated. The only requirement is that these are activities that you feel passionate about doing and have, for one reason or another, not yet done:
- Schedule time in an online basic drawing class or take a friend with you to a local painting class.
- Book an hour at a local trapeze school.
- Check out a book from the library on a topic you’ve been itching to learn about.
- Buy tickets to the ballet.
- Take a surfing lesson, archery lesson, or tennis lesson.
- Splurge on an omakase dinner at a sushi restaurant.
- Visit a local museum you’ve been meaning to visit for a long time.
- Buy yourself a big bouquet of fresh flowers.
- Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while and would regret if you never got to talk to him or her again.
If you want to take on an even bigger version of this Mission, schedule something for each week for the next four weeks straight. By the end of one month, you’ll have knocked a number of items off your bucket list and you’ll be able to see what a difference doing the things you want to do makes in your life.
The Scoring
This WLC Mission isn’t scored. To complete it, just find time for a new fitness pursuit this week. Consider it a personal exploration, a way to enhance your journey toward overall well-being (while potentially doing something very cool). In other words, give the Mission a shot — but leave the scoreboard at home.
In 2005, she became a student at CrossFit Los Angeles where she met WLC co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck. In only a couple years, she became CrossFit Level III Certified, left her entertainment career, and dedicated herself full time to coaching, serving as the Program Director of CFLA and founder of the CFLA CrossFit Kids program. After seven years as a music editor and then eight years as fitness instructor, Becca segued to her current career — full-time editor and writer.
