There are probably 5 holes in your bucket

What is a bucket list?

No doubt you have seen the film The Bucket List, the idea which has inspired many people to review what their most important tangible goals are.  Climbing a mountain, running a marathon, having a sports car, visiting a certain place, learning something new and so on.  Many bucket lists and plans tend to be focused around things, going, doing, seeing and having, yet surely there is more to life than just things?

There is a far deeper, more meaningful aspect which is easily overlooked and forgotten… 

We build a list of ’10 places to visit before you die’, ’10 things to do while you still have the time’ and so on. Now, whilst that is all well and good, and the power of 10 is huge, perhaps the power of 3 is more meaningful?

The three most important questions

George Kinder founded a vibrant manner of delivering financial advice called Financial Life Planning.  This combines the mechanics of traditional financial planning, with a major focus on what the individual wants to achieve, how they want to feel, and who they want to be.

The foundation stones of the work are based around George’s three questions, which  brings far more insight and value than you would expect

The first question, imagining that you have all the money you could need, is as far as many people go with their bucket list – “I would buy this, own that, travel there, stop work” etc.

The second one focuses more on a reduced time horizon for life, and generally is the final stop for many of these ’10 things to do’ type lists.

The third question, is the one which examines who we really want to be, what we really want – and the one, which can usually only be explored with a skilled planner.

Along this journey, people just like you discover that they learn a number of things along the way …

1. Don’t just have a tick list of things to do– when you have this, what will you do once they are achieved?
2. There are always reasons why you want to do things– explore behind the ‘doing’ to find the real reason – which you could call ‘being’ .
3. The people in your life are also part of this– it’s easy to go off on your own charter and start forgetting that there are very few people who can read your mind.
4. The experience is fluid– it is not a movie which we can just switch on.
5. Ultimately, life, and your plan is a never ending journey – focus on the way of travelling NOT just the destination and stops along the way.

We’ll have a deeper look at these in the next article – 5 insights to find your purpose…