Stop waiting until tomorrow. Start ticking off your bucket list items today and discover how achievements and goals-oriented thinking can make your life more exciting and also longer, happier, and healthier.
No matter what life stage you’re at, a bucket list can feel abstract.
It’s easy to think of the compilation of your most exciting goals as something for the distant future, rather than something to work toward in the present. But tackling your life bucket list now can result in a surprising array of health benefits that, in turn, could gift you extra years in which to do even more extraordinary things.
Here’s Fit4100’s top three reasons to stop procrastinating and start crossing things off your ‘My Bucket List’ spreadsheet today.
#1 – The spin-off benefits of bucket list motivation
Whether your bucket list is highly physical and filled with plans to climb Mt Kilimanjaro and jump from a plane, or errs more toward intellectual achievements like launching a business and reaching Grandmaster status in chess, you need to be on top of your game to fulfil your goals.
Making a commitment to ticking off your bucket list items in a set time frame will provide you with the boost you need to make a variety of better health choices.
Suddenly, you’ll have a concrete and specific reason to do your daily mindfulness practice, eat better, or stay more active.
With a bucket list goal on the horizon, being motivated to make positive change becomes easy instead of arduous.
#2 – Bucket list health and longevity benefits
Research shows that being active and engaged has wide-reaching health benefits. Common bucket list examples, like travel and fitness goals, are also opportunities for the kind of engagement that leads to better health and longevity.
In 2019, a study published in PNAS specifically linked the psychological attribute of optimism to living a longer life, with the authors stating that optimism is related to an “11 to 15% longer life span, on average, and to greater odds of… living to the age of 85 or beyond”.
Optimism is related to an “11 to 15% longer life span, on average, and to greater odds of… living to the age of 85 or beyond”.
Achieving long-term goals like those found on your bucket list is an ideal way to foster these longevity-inducing positive feelings.
Research also shows people learning new skills, staying active, and socially engaged have better health outcomes.
In 2017, a study of older adults learning to use tablet devices found that the development of new skills – like those you might learn in service of a bucket list goal – has “the potential to reduce or delay cognitive changes associated with ageing”.
#3 – Create the bucket list virtuous cycle
It might be that you and a friend or partner work through a couple bucket list together, or that your individual life bucket list has been something you’ve developed since you were a child.
No matter the contents or set-up of your bucket list, achieving some of its goals will help you learn more about yourself and what you really want from life.
Armed with this personal information about yourself, you can set new, even more relevant goals and begin to create a virtuous bucket list cycle.
Eventually, every achievement will lead you to discovering a new and exciting goal – supplying you with an endless stream of optimism, motivation, and engagement that will keep you happy and healthy in mind, body and soul.