My annual bucket list refresh, sharing my goals, hopes and intentions for 2024.
Goals posts are a funny thing to publish. I mean, some of you won’t care what I’m hoping to achieve in 2024, and that is fine. But talking about my bucket list is very OG Splodz Blogz, and I just can’t help myself.
I mean, Splodz Blogz is still a blog like they used to be, in many ways. I write about my own real-life experiences in a personal and honest way, with a hint of analysis, deep thought and motivational speaking thrown in for good measure. The fact that I’m dedicating my Thursday post this week to sharing my bucket list, goals, hopes and intentions for 2024 shouldn’t be seen as out of kilter with the rest of the articles you might read on here.
I’ve had a bucket list for well over 15 years, first writing it way back (way, way back…) when I turned 25 in 2005. It’s my way of inspiring myself to have a good and fun life. An opportunity to light a little spark in my own mind and get motivated to plan adventures. And that has to be worth reading about, yes?!
Setting Good Intentions
My bucket list, and this (now annual) reset post, is how I ensure I am taking the time for the things I enjoy in life – and push myself to see what other things I might enjoy. Taking part in things I like to do helps make me feel both energised and relaxed at the same time, which ultimately results in helping me avoid burnout. Well, nearly. You know what I mean.
While last year’s bucket list reset post was published a good month after everyone else had set and started work on their goals for 2023, this year there seems to be a real trend for waiting until February before people set out their stall for the rest of this year. What’s that – a trend setter? Nah… just people catching on with the fact that January is a notoriously difficult month, and it is sensible to give ourselves time to settle in before making any big statements.
My reason for waiting this year is the same as for last year – it left January for me to concentrate on embedding a few regular habits into my daily life. I think it’s a good idea to give myself a month to slip gently into the New Year, making sure I’m not swept away with the setting of huge life goals, or jumping on the first bandwagon that’s served to me via social media.
Comparing Things to Last Year
Last year, this list was a big one in my life. It included at least three significant bucket list items – hiking two National Trails (the Cotswold Way and the Cumbria Way), and an overland adventure in Morocco. It also included a bunch of smaller one-night adventure intentions, some of which I managed to tick off, and some that I didn’t think about once after publishing the list.
Please do go and read how I faired against my 2023 bucket list in this weekly blog episode.
In some ways, this year’s list feels small in comparison. The way my leave year falls means I’ve already used most of my allotted adventure time until the end of August when it renews, and I can’t warrant quite so much spend this year. I am not planning to complete a National Trail, and I don’t have a Sahara-desert-worthy motorcycling adventure in the dairy. Nothing that will make you (or me) go ‘wow’.
There is still a lot of fun to be had, though. Really, I’m just going back to what my bucket list was originally designed for – giving me purposeful ways to have adventures in a way that can be managed whilst living a normal life.
My 2024 Bucket List
Okay, let’s stop the preamble. This is list of the things from my bucket list, plus some extra bits and bobs, I want to try and do in 2024. Some have already made it into the diary, some should be easy enough to fit in, some will take a bit of planning, while others will require more than a little fortune.
I call this my “yes please in 2024” bucket list.
And in the interests of not having one list when I can have two (I still smile at the fact that Pepsi Max once drew me as ‘the listmaker’), I’ve split up my 2024 goals and intentions into two categorised inventories.
The first is primarily about goals that feel to me like adventures, all be them small ones. That is, going out and doing something fun and satisfying, that might challenge me a little bit, or at least involve time off work or away from home, some advanced planning, and probably a bit of money spent. The second is more of a flavour of the good things I want to fill my life with because they will make my everyday a little happier (and healthier) than it might otherwise be.
Outdoor Adventures
Here are the outdoor adventures and related activities I would like to make happen in 2024:
- Hike Pen Y Fal (Sugar Loaf), Bannau Brycheiniog. Okay, so if you read weekly blog episode 139, you know I’ve already done this one, but hey, it’s part of my 2024 bucket list, and so musty make an appearance in this post.
- Have a relaxing holiday in the sun. As in go on holiday with the sole intention of recharging my batteries. With lots of time spent exploring the outdoors too, of course. This one is booked and paid for – send me your must-do suggestions for Madeira, please!
- Go on a motorcycle road trip in mainland Europe. This will probably involve heading south. Maybe to Italy. (Heading north will wait until next year!) The annual leave is booked, let’s see where we end up.
- Explore more of the Lake District. I’m heading to Cumbria to see a friend for a few days in the spring, and am excited to explore more of this beautiful part of the country with her as my guide. I’m hoping for a mountain top, a woodland, and a lake… Fiona, over to you!
- Spend the night in my tent with a view of the sea, so I can watch the sunset over the water, and go for a pre-breakfast paddle the following morning. I might wait until the summer for this one.
- Go for a riverside (or canal-side…) picnic by kayak. After using it heaps the previous year, I didn’t use my kayak anywhere near as much as I would have liked in 2023 – and I’d like to put that right. There is something so lovely about seeing the countryside by water, I must make time for more of that.
- Have a weekend city break in Manchester to spend time with a good friend and do some urban exploring.
- Have a solo stay in a cosy shepherd’s hut. Bonus points if there’s a hot tub. Even more bonus points if I can see animals from my window!
- Go on a short one- or two-night motorcycle camping trip to test out my new bike and luggage set-up for this kind of travel. Call this a shake-down trip, if you like, with potential future adventures in mind, an opportunity to make sure I’ve got things set up as I want them, and to get used to things before we do something longer.
- Do an overnight hiking trip either with some wild camping or a night in a YHA (or both…). Nothing too long, technical or challenging, but a doable self-powered adventure to get me out into the wilds and enjoying being part of some big views.
- Go surfing. In the sea or at The Wave, I don’t mind, but I really fancy getting back on a board this year.
- Ride the Kielder Forest Drive in Northumberland, Raiders Road Forest Drive in Galloway Forest Park, and Three Lochs Forest Drive in Queen Elizabeth Forest Park – three gravel roads open to the public in the UK. The intention is to ride this with a few riders we met on our Morocco trip last year, and it will be my first unpaved adventure on my new F750GS.
- Stay overnight in a treehouse. This very simple one-night trip has been on my bucket list for an absolute age, maybe even since the beginning. I hope 2024 is the year I can make it happen.
The Good Intentions
Where I think I nailed my 2023 goals was in this next section – the things I want to carve out time for on a regular, maybe daily, basis. These good intentions include spending time outside, being with the people I love, using blogging to help create fun opportunities, and purposefully relaxing at home. Some of these things are the same as last year, but others have been adjusted to match my current thinking about a life lived intentionally and well.
- Get One Hour Outside (or more) every day. It’s the thing I talk about most on my blog, but it still needs to be my own specific goal. One Hour Outside inspired adventures I’d like to have include hiking, swimming, kayaking, motorcycling, surfing, running, picnics, camp fires, and whatever else takes my fancy. This is an unapologetic outdoors catch-all, because having fun outdoors is one of my favourite ways to spend my time. Bonus points if these outdoor activities are with friends.
- Seek out short walks, and do them slowly. While I love the adventure of lengthy day hikes and multi-day hikes, they are filled with such pressure in terms of time and distance. Meandering along for an hour or two is so joyful, I want to make more time for that.
- Consciously and intentionally work on my fitness. I’ve really let it slide over the last few years, even with all the walking and other things (it’s easily done, especially when life is busy). I want to live an active lifestyle for years to come, and I want to achieve that by leading an active life now.
- Blog regularly. Actually, let me quantify that. Write for (at least) 30-minutes every day, and publish two articles a week, every week. One of those will be my weekly blog post, which focuses on my experience of living life in whatever form that takes at the time. The other will be an article focused on the outdoors, travel or adventure. If I miss one here and there, that’s okay, but my aim, my goal, is to publish two posts a week.
- Continue to add to my repertoire of home cooked meals to make mid-week dinners more interesting, both for when I have time to spare and when I’m in a rush. I love food, and want to make time – and continue to develop the skills – to eat well. What’s on your meal plan this week?! Send me your recipe suggestions!
- Keep up with the daily habits for all-round health I set up for myself in January, including starting the day with water not tea, writing in my journal (I’m finding morning pages is working well for me), taking my vitamins, doing a few squats and lunges, going for a walk, and doing some daily language practice.
Getting into Heaven…
I remember once been told that we don’t get to heaven on our good intentions. It’s one of those statements that has stuck with me, and the message in that statement is incredibly clear.
It doesn’t matter what our goal is; thinking about it, writing it down or even telling someone else what it is, won’t make it happen. Unless we make the time and effort to act upon our hopes and dreams, they are nothing and will become nothing. However big or small the things we want to achieve are, we must take real and methodical steps to make whatever it is you want to achieve a reality.
But hey, writing it down – and publishing it for all to see – must be a good first step.
And maybe this post will inspire you think of a few things you might want to do this year, and importantly, to start planning to make sure they happen.
What would be fantastic, is if you can help motivate me, make suggestions of what else should be on it (I like nothing more than being sent a random Instagram post featuring a ridiculous activity!), and recommend where/how I might be able to get these things organised. Comment away – your ideas are always welcome.
