‘Bucket Lists’ (a list of things you’d love to do before you die) sound like they should be fun, hopefully motivating and a 
bit of harmless dreaming really. But like many tools, vision boards, affirmations and axes included, if used incorrectly can be harmful, even fatal. And you’re thinking, “Axes fatal, yes I get that, but vision boards and affirmations?!”
Bucket lists came back onto my radar after attending a National Speakers Association event where Travis Bell, ‘The Bucket List Guy’ presented a speakers’ professional development segment. It occurred to me I no longer had one, vision boards had replaced them I guess. My first Bucket List was written as a school activity “My Life in 2000”. The year 2000 seemed soooo far off back then, and I would be soooo old in 2000.
But I wrote my list, and over the years I actually ticked most off, and replaced the others with even more exciting options, like canoeing the Zambezi River and climbing the Ruwenzori Mountains in Zaire and walking across the Simpson Desert with camels and much more. I still haven’t learnt to ride a horse properly, but I can handle and care for a pack camel. I haven’t had my own children either. I believed (wrongly as it turned out) that two of my dreams weren’t compatible, and that I had to choose. Life is full of choice-point moments that lead us towards or away from our dreams. Have you noticed that?
Dreams are powerful, [I just took a phone call – my application for a TEDx training workshop was accepted – YAHOO – one step closer to that entry on my brand new Bucket List “TED speaker”], but so to is self belief. The former without the latter can be destructive. If, when you write your Bucket List, create your Vision Board, select your daily Affirmations, you have a strong emotional reaction that is positive, uplifting etc, you are well on your way as taking action in that direction will come more easily. When re-reading your list, studying your images, saying your words, expands you, you’ll suddenly start noticing ways, means, people who can help you get closer.
On the other hand, if your list, images, words, weigh heavily, if you hear that inner voice saying, “Yeah, sure, you? Dream on, loser!” Or similar, then repeating the process increases the negative impact, driving you further and further away from the pain you now associate with that goal or dream. You’ve effectively created a negative anchor to your dream, instead of a positive one, so the result will be the opposite to what you thought you wanted. And for some, inflated by the grandiose dreams of a powerful personal development program, that perceived gap gets too great, the disappointment turns to despair, and it doesn’t seem worth living any more. (R.I.P. Butterfly)
So, what to do? Some suggestions:
1. Look back and acknowledge what you have achieved over your life. Nothing? Nonsense! You’re not still sitting on the floor in nappies, and at the least you’ve learnt to look after yourself and read. What else can you do or know now, that you didn’t before?
2. Start with just one or two small goals or dreams. Achieve them, feel great. Set the next a little bigger, and work your way up to those bigger ones as your confidence and self-belief grows.
3. Get your affirmations ‘corrected’ – remove the internal resistance with NLP, or another effective modality that works on the deeper unconscious and/or energetic levels, shifting the limiting self-beliefs you hold.
4. Most of all, allow yourself to believe that you can step into your personal power and take control of creating those changes you want in your life. In fact, the only person who can is you, and you are far more than you allow yourself to believe. In fact, no matter how successful you feel now, you’ve so much more still inside, just waiting to come out and play.
I remember seeing a cartoon of 2 caterpillars looking up at a butterfly floating overhead, and one saying to the other, “You’ll never get me up in one of those things!”
If you’d like me to assist you to ‘get up in one of those things’ let me know. 😉
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