Unlock Your Potential: 10 Reasons To Create A Life List

Mortality isn’t something most people think about. I started thinking about dying at 14, after my brother, who was a year and a half older, died suddenly at track practice. It didn’t make sense how a healthy, active, young man could be alive one minute and gone the next. 

The autopsy report didn’t provide much for answers either, noting “cardiac” as the cause of death. Without a definitive reason for his death, my thoughts went into overdrive. If he was young and healthy, and died unexpectedly, what was stopping that from happening to me? 

I was forced to face the reality, I am going to die. No idea when, no idea how, but it will happen. So, I better start living.  

That is when I decided to make a Bucket List, or as I prefer to call it a “Life List”. Something to keep me focused on living. Making the most of my life, however short or long it is. Over the years of completing items from my list, I’ve seen multiple benefits of having a Life List. 

10 reasons to make a Life List:

1. More likely to achieve your goals

   • A study done in 2007 showed people are 42% more likely to achieve their goals when they write them down. If you don’t even have to get off the couch to boost your odds by almost 50%, so why not make a Life List?  

2. Living intentionally

   • When you write down your goals and review them often, you start planning ways to make things happen. You see how often you tell yourself “I’ll get to it someday”. A Life List changes that to “Why not today?” 

3. Change your perspective

   • After you write down your biggest dreams, the fear sets in. “I’m not qualified, I can’t do this, I might fail”.  You’re right, you might fail…but did you die? If you compare everything to the worst-case scenario, your death, doing something new, failing, and learning from it doesn’t seem so bad. 

4. Enjoy living outside the comfort zone

   • Whenever you try something new you stretch your comfort zone. The first few times can be terrifying. But when you consistently do new or challenging things, your outlook shifts from fear to excitement. You grow and your comfort zone grows with you.  

5. Creates community

   • People like to help people, especially when it comes to fulfilling dreams. As you do new things, you meet people along the way, learn from each other, and build relationships. 

6. Inspire others

   • When others see you achieve your dreams, they look inward, think about their own dreams, and believe they can achieve them too. This creates a cycle of people inspiring others by living their dreams.

7. Find joy in simplicity

   • The purpose of the list is to live, which means in the small things too. When you focus on the experience, how you feel, the taste, touch, smell, and everything around you, you will find great joy in the simplest things. 

8. Minimize regrets

   • There are five common regrets of the dying. Number one is living how others had expected and not having the courage to live differently. Putting your dreams on paper makes you focus on what you want to do, not others. Then as you accomplish things on your list you grow in courage and confidence, and become your true self on the way. 

9. Movie moments become your reality

   • Movie moments are things that happen in movies but rarely happen in real life. Instead of saying “I wish that happened in real life”, you make it happen, like kissing in the rain or having a candlelight dinner. 

10. Dreams live

•  When you don't write down your dreams, they get lost in the chaos of the world and remain a dream. Having a place to keep them and review them often keeps them in focus. 

Everyone dies, but not everyone lives. My brother’s sudden passing taught me we don’t know when our time will be up. Instead of being consumed by fear, choose to live intentionally, step out of your comfort zone, and live your dreams.

What are your dreams? What are you going to put on your Life List to live without regret?