How Making A Reverse Bucket List Made Me Happier By Kathleen Murphy

By Kathleen Murphy

To create my best life in retirement, I learned I had to shift my perspective

When I turned 60 — too young to retire, too old to continue sprinting on the corporate hamster wheel — I received a birthday present I’ll never forget — a book called My Bucket List, by authors Axel & Ash. The introduction read:

“My Bucket List is designed to catch all your dreams, desires, and ideas to make sure you live your life to the absolute fullest! So open your mind, throw off your bowlines, and sail away from the safe harbor — it’s time to decide how you want to spend the rest of your life, it’s time to insert YOUR story!”

I was hooked! The idea of planning adventures outside the structured confines of my 9-to-5 was intoxicating. Right away, I began scribbling, filling the pages with my long-repressed dreams and visions.

Among my notes:

Go on a health retreat! Score a hole-in-one. Start a nonprofit for kids. Finish my novel. Travel through Alaska by sled dog. Compete in a poetry slam. Drink wine in France. Experience zero gravity!

The effect was exhilarating. Before making my Bucket List, I thought my number-one retirement goal was no more ambitious than sleeping in on weekdays.

But now, I knew life would be so much better than I’d ever imagined! I was sure that accomplishing my newfound goals would bring me near-perfect happiness.

Trashing the Bucket List

But then I came across Arthur C. Brooks’ book From Strength to Strength — which put a whole new spin on my Bucket List.

I was surprised to learn that Brooks, a Harvard-trained social scientist, isn’t keen on the practice. He points out that goals such as taking an exotic vacation or seeking thrills are often driven by external attachments.

While there’s nothing wrong with worldly rewards or dreams that push your limits, Brooks says, the important thing is to determine why. Seeking true purpose and meaning is good, he maintains. Seeking the admiration or envy of others is not.

Another challenge with Bucket List items is that the results are often only temporarily satisfying. That’s because of homeostasis — the process living things use to maintain stability. We usually think of homeostasis as regulating physical conditions such as temperature or oxygen levels, but the same principles work on human emotions.

For example, Brooks says, when you base your self-worth on worldly rewards, you’ll go from accomplishment to accomplishment enjoying nothing more than a brief high. That’s the hedonic treadmill. You run and run but make no real progress toward real happiness. As the Rolling Stones put it, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

With their focus on getting, owning, and doing more and more, Bucket Lists do little more than amp up your stress, Brooks says. The result is a competitive pressure cooker — a never-ending to-do list, peppered with a sense of urgency.

The solution: reverse your list

At first, reading Brooks’ book was a buzz-killer. If I couldn’t chase a hole-in-one, an Alaskan adventure, or another such thrill in my retirement, what was I to do?

The answer, Brooks says, is crafting a Reverse Bucket List. While a run-of-the-mill Bucket List simply adds more and more tasks, a reverse version takes them away — leaving only the things that give your life its true purpose and meaning.

How to make a reverse Bucket List? Brooks suggests:

• List your weaknesses and external attachments (such as money, power, pleasure, or admiration).
• Identify the forces of your true joy (such as family, friends, faith, community service, and meaningful work).
• Consider the true costs of your Bucket List items. How much time, attention, and resources would be required?
• Pare down your list. Commit to the goals that don’t compete with your joy and that will bring you real and long-lasting happiness.

Off the treadmill

Building a Reverse Bucket List helped me clarify my life goals. Among the items I moved up the list are those supporting health, relationships, home, and community. Items I moved down or off my list — exotic travel, completing a half-baked novel, and chasing adrenaline highs.

The exercise also helped me better understand that for me, the secret to happiness and satisfaction is not to add, but to subtract.

I stopped seeing life as a page to be filled. I started seeing it as a block of marble — to chisel away and shape into something new and meaningful.

I found that amping up my level of daily joy and happiness was not a bad payback — especially for completing a simple four-step exercise. Completing a Reverse Bucket List was just the ticket I needed to prove ol’ Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones wrong: With just a little determination and focus, I could get real satisfaction.

Reprinted with permission from Kathleen Murphy (originally published on Medium, May 21, 2024)

Kathleen Murphy has always been a writer – for newspapers, magazines, companies, and nonprofit organizations. Today, as an independent journalist, she writes about physical health, emotional wellness, and successful aging. She’s living her dream through her creative projects and her adventures in the great outdoors.