15. Beyond the Bucket List: Living Life's Adventures Before Time Runs Out

Have you made your summer bucket list yet? What about your life's bucket list?

As high-performing women, we spend a lot of time creating checklists of things "to do." Most of them are menial, everyday tasks and chores that don't impact our lives in a meaningful way. And instead of getting to work checking things off our bucket lists, we wait to tackle those lists until the time is right, or it's more convenient for everyone around us, or until we retire, or someday.

In this episode, I'm discussing why it's time to make your bucket list, and get serious about checking those things off while you still have time. 

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Transcript

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there is always another reason why we can't do the thing. We think. All right. We will do this when we retire and have more time, or when the kids move out of the house or when it's more convenient for others. We put things off until someday or when the time is right. Which means we never actually get around to doing them. We fill our calendar with obligations that are not meaningful to us. Just so that we can have a packed calendar and we put off those experiences and the things that we really want to do. Until that someday. Or when the time is right. And because of that. We miss out on a lot of life. We just delay, delay, delay. Thinking that at some magical point. We're going to feel like we can finally focus on ourselves and finally do the things we want to do. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm Laurie Reynoldson, former award-winning attorney turned high performance coach for midlife women. I designed this podcast is your go-to place for weekly midlife inspiration, where I'll be sharing, inspiring stories, providing step-by-step actionable coaching and introducing you to some incredible women who are absolutely crushing it at the midlife game. And you'd better believe we'll also be having candid conversations about mid-life relationships, career moves, money, menopause, and so much more. So take out your reading glasses and notebooks. My friends, because the School of Midlife is in session. Well, Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the school of mid-life podcast. If you have been following me on social or you receive my Sunday BEST LIFE List newsletter, you know that I have been talking a little bit about summer bucket lists lately. It's this idea that. There are 13 weekends of summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And I don't know, but there's something so special about summer. You know, the, the pace of life is just different. There's. Al fresco dining and drinks on the patio and lounging around a fire at night underneath bistro lights. I feel like bistro lights make everything better. It doesn't matter if it's summer or not, but. There are there days at the lake and days at the beach and summer concerts and just all of these things about summer that make it so special. And I don't know if it hearkens back. Hm, Harkins. How old am I? But it reminds me of the freedom of childhood in the summer. It's, it's just something very special. But what I notice is summer oftentimes gets jam packed full of commitments. It's almost like in the rush to cram all of this goodness into summer. But all of the sudden we end up with calendar control issues. And there, there are so many fun things to do during the summer. So I understand why that happens. But unless you're intentional about what it is. You want to include On your summer bucket list. Before, you know, it. You'll find that you have something on the calendar, every single weekend and many weeknights, too. And that's absolutely. Okay. But sometimes you need to be a little choosy about how you're going to spend your time. And that's where. This idea of a summer bucket list comes in. When you think of what are the things that you want to do for summer? What is on that must do list. What makes summer for you? Those are the things that you should add to your summer bucket list and then make sure that they get on the calendar. So within those 13, Weekends of summer. And at the time of this recording, we are. I don't know, three, four weekends past. Memorial day weekend. So we're squarely in summer weekends at this point. But if you were to make a list of the items, that the things you wanted to do, the places you wanted to go, what you wanted to see the summer. Make a list of those and then put them on your calendar so that you actually. Make sure that you do those things as summer. For me in Boise. Things on my summer bucket list include going to a play at the Idaho Shakespeare festival. I love me a rodeo and there are two in particular that I try and hit every summer. The days of the old west rodeo in Haley, when we're in sun valley for the 4th of July. And the Caldwell night rodeo, which was where the Cowboys are, the stars and it's this fantastic. Um, it's, uh, it's actually a PBR feeder rodeo. Um, and. It is. It's just so cool to be in Caldwell, Idaho. At night watching the rodeo. Super super fun. I also want to float the Boise river. Get out our bicycles and bike to Telaya, which is a winery that has a tasting room. Right. On the green belt on the Boise river. Uh, let's see water-ski at lucky peak dam. Even though I don't have a boat, I've got a ski. So, um, I've got to figure out who's got a boat that will pull me. Uh, on water-ski this summer. Uh, I typically like to host a summer dinner party. Great food. Great wine. Great friends. So we'll get that on the calendar. I love to go shopping for some Oregon grown raspberries and blueberries and blackberries at the farmer's market. And then I take those home and I make an incredible Blackberry crisp and I serve it with some homemade vanilla ice cream. To me, there's something very special about that summer dessert. Probably going to hit up a Boise Hawks game. Uh, maybe go, maybe this'll be the year that we go to a drive-in movie at the Parma Motor-Vu. This one has been on the list for a long time. Uh, you might not know, but Mike is from a very small town outside of Boise, about 45 minutes, right on the Oregon border. called Parma, Idaho, and they have one of the last remaining drive-in movie theaters in the area. But. I mean, I love going to a drive in movie. Dang, they start so late in Idaho in the summer in Boise, Because we're very near the time zone line. It doesn't get dark here until 10 o'clock at night. So the idea that we would drive an hour. To go to a drive in, wait until it got dark at 10, o'clock start a movie at 10 o'clock. Sit through one movie and then maybe part of the next, cause I think that's what you do at drive-ins. I mean, we'd be getting home very, very late way past my time. So maybe we'll put that on the summer bucket list again this year and actually see if we get it done. But you, you get the idea. These are things that I can only do during the summertime. And because I can only do them during the summertime. That means for me, To ensure that I actually enjoy these experiences or actually make time to have these experiences. And make the summer bucket list. And then I put them on the calendar. That way. When we're sitting around wondering what are we going to do tonight? Or what are we going to do this weekend? I've got a list of things that I want to go and do and see, and experience. Makes sense, right? I'm getting a lot of. Comments from people that they love this idea of a summer bucket list and that they are making their own. And I love the fact that. People are taking action to be intentional about how they want to spend their time this summer. What I've do find interesting is that. Most people. We'll get to the point where they check everything off their summer bucket list. And I think it's because they've got this finite amount of time. So they. They make the list and then they get very intentional about not wasting the goodness of summer. But that's different than a life bucket list. Where. We. Sometimes create the bucket list, but so often most of the items on the bucket list remain unchecked. I mean, we make a summer bucket list. Because we want. To have certain experiences during the summer, which is the same reason we make a life bucket list, right. It it's a list of things we want to do, or we want to see or experience. Places we want to go or. Um, maybe things we want to learn or people we want to meet. So we make this long list of. Things. Well, we want to do where we want to go, who we want to meet all those things. What type of experiences do we want to have? But we don't actually take the time to do those things, right. We wait until retirement or when the time is right. Or someday, because we always have this feeling that we have so much more time than we do. Which is different than summer, you know, we've got those 13 finite weeks, so we cram everything in. To those 13 weeks. We should get a little more intentional and. Time conscious. About the things that are on our life bucket list. Instead of saying, you know, we'll get around to that after the next promotion. Um, maybe you'll finally buy that Cartier bracelet that you've been coveting after the next promotion. Or you'll finally Book the trip to the Amalfi coast to swim in the blue grotto. After you lose those last 15 pounds and you feel comfortable in a bathing suit. There are experiences. We want to have things we want to do. Things. We want to buy places. We want to go. But we sure have a awful lot of excuses don't we, we can't take the time off right now. Um, the time is not good for me to leave this project. The kids need me. I need to stay home because of X, Y, or Z. It, it doesn't seem like there is ever a shortage of excuses of why we can't. Go and do the things that we actually want to do. It's interesting with my coaching clients. I have them create a list that I call the big 100. And it's. A bucket list of sorts. Um, they, I give them a hundred lines and on there, I want them to envision what their best life looks like, envision the experiences that they have. As part of that best life, who do they want to be? What do they want to do? And. Create. A list of 100 things. So, what do they want to do? What do they want to see? What do they want to experience? Where do they want to go? What do they want to learn? Who do they want to meet? And interestingly. It's very easy for them to come up with the first 20 or 30. They get those, you know, they write down 20 or 30 of them. They can rattle them off really quickly. They write them down on the paper and then they get stuck. And it's so hard for them to move past that first 20 or 30. And I think there are two different reasons for that. One. That inner editor kicks in. You know, the one that kind of sits on your shoulder and thinks you're too old to do that or that ship has sailed or the time has passed. Or you don't have enough time or money. And because we are. High-performing women who are accustomed to completing everything that we put on a checklist. What I find is that my clients listen to that inner editor and they won't write something down if they don't think they can complete it. So. It's hard because of the inner editor. It's also hard for a second reason. And I think that that's because we have quit dreaming. And what I mean by that is if you ask a woman. What is your dream life look like? She doesn't know. Because she hasn't really thought about. What is it that she wants? She's been so stuck in this. Doing mode. This, this idea of do the thing, check it off. What's next and it's this head down. Working mode. That we, they. She just goes through life. What's next. I finished this what's next. I finished this what's next without actually. Thinking about. What do I really want to do? And that's why when she gets to midlife, And she feels a little differently than she thought she would. She's successful by every societal measure. But she just doesn't feel the way she thought she would when she got here, because she's done everything that was expected to have her, to this point. I mean. For the most part. We are all kids of parents who worked, I don't know, 30 or 40 years at the same job and retired with a pension. So it doesn't make sense to them that we would try new things. Or leave a job without a backup plan. Or not take a job based solely on the compensation that we would receive. You know, the whole idea of if you're going to leave this job. It better be for another job, that's going to pay a lot more. They would never think about. Building a life or say they could live part of the year abroad that just, that doesn't occur to them. That that has never been on their radar. And because we still battle this. We'll call it the inner good girl. The one, the girl who wants to make everyone around us happy, including our parents, you know, the, the one who still seeks approval and validation, the one who still asks. Mom and dad for their opinion, because we want everyone around us to be proud of us. That's that's just who we are. That's what has been ingrained in us. For a very, very long time. And because of that. We quit dreaming. We've we feel best when we're accomplishing things. So when we are facing. Something, you know, if we're, we're asked to create a list of things, Which requires us to think a little bit outside of the box or. Maybe differently than we've been conditioned to think about them. Or add things to a list that we want to do simply because they make us feel good. We don't think that's a good enough reason. So we stop with the dreaming. We get very objective about, can I accomplish this or not? And. We listened to that inner editor. Which is unfortunate.'cause That just means that we're missing out on so many great experiences and, and many experiences that would bring a lot of life. To our life. What's what's interesting. If. If we can get past. The. Lack of dreaming. Uh, the lack of giving ourselves the luxury of dreaming. And if we're able to silence that inner editor And that inner critic. I think if we were able to come up with a true bucket list. Unfortunately, most of those experiences. Would still go unfulfilled. And I think it's because. We just, aren't intentional about completing them. And what I mean by that is there is always another reason why we can't do the thing. We think. All right. We will do this when we retire and have more time, or when the kids move out of the house or when it's more convenient for others. We put things off until someday or when the time is right. Which means we never actually get around to doing them. We fill our calendar with obligations that are not meaningful to us. Just so that we can have a packed calendar and we put off those experiences and the things that we really want to do. Until that someday. Or when the time is right. And because of that. We miss out on a lot of life. We just delay, delay, delay. Thinking that at some magical point. We're going to feel like we can finally focus on ourselves and finally do the things we want to do. Let me tell you about my dad. at the time that this episode airs, this past weekend was father's day. And. My dad was my person. You know how you have a parent who cheers a little louder for you at your soccer games, you know, shows up for every dance recital helps with every science project. Um, the, the parent who has your back. When you ask your parents to do something and they seem to be divided in your response. My dad was the one who always had my back. He was the one who taught me a lot of things in my life, but taught me the most important lesson of my life, which I'll get to in a minute. when I think about the things that dad taught me, Uh, he taught me how to drive a stick shift. I remember him being very patient. I grew up in a very hilly area on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state. The first time we went out driving was stuck on a little bit of a hill. And I was so concerned about. Working the clutch, this whole idea of a clutch. Letting out the clutch slowly giving it some gas to, you know, to that friction point so that the car would go. It was just such a new experience for me. And I didn't know how to do it. And I remember stalling on this hill. Cod. I don't know how many times I'm going to say 30 or 40 times. It was a whole lot. And. I remember. My dad's patients. Only went so far, but you know, after 40 tries of stalling, a car on a slight incline. I can understand why his patients were running thin. But I remember at one point, my, my ever patient father looked at me and said, I know your not stupid. Let the clutch out slowly and give it some God damn gas. And at this point, I'm in tears because you know, I'm trying my best. He's trying to teach me how to drive a stick shift. I don't want to let him down and. Suffice it to say, I finally did get us off the hill. I learned how to drive a stick shift. That was probably not our best moment, but he stuck with me. Taught me how to drive a stick shift. He. He was a decorated. Sprinter. He was a state champion sprinter at the local community college and all through high school. Very decorated. And. Um, he was the one who introduced me to running and started a, just a love of running. My whole life started with sprints, just like him. And we spent hours at the track. For him patiently teaching me how to explode out of the starting blocks at track meets and how to lean into the tape. At the end of the race. I don't remember my dad ever missing a track meet. He was one of those people that, you know, if he had to drive two and a half hours to watch me run one or two races, he would drive two hours, to watch me run. That's that's the kind of supporter he was. He taught me how to check and change the oil in my car, how to wrap pieces of multi-colored glass with copper tape, and then solder them together to create beautiful stained glass windows. He was the person I had on speed dial when things just, they weren't going quite right. You know, where, um, I had a struggle with, with boys or friends or school or, or whatever. And. You know, he was just always. Uh, an incredible supporter of me. Always. Fast forward many years and he retired from his second career on his 66th birthday. He had, when I say second career, he had retired from his first career after working for the phone company for 31 years. He tried early retirement, took a retirement package and. Frankly, got bored with retirement. I remember him calling me at one point. He had just finished building a soundproof box for an air compressor. Think about an air compressor, they make a lot of noise. He literally was out of projects to the point where he built a soundproof box for an air compressor. So I remember that conversation on the phone with him. And I just said, dad, I think you need to go back to work. And he did, you know, retirement early retirement for him. Just wasn't. It didn't stick. So he went back to work. And worked another, gosh, I don't know, 10, 12 years. And, um, Wanted to retire on his 66th birthday because he wanted to maximize his social security benefits. I still don't quite understand why that was so important to him because he had, he'd always invested very wisely. Um, But he, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his mid forties. So I think in the back of his mind, he knew. You know, he expected mounting medical bills and retirement. And even though he had done a really great job of investing. I think that was just kind of a safety net for him, which he would. Maximize the social security benefits so that he could take care of his medical bills and retirement. He at the time of retiring, he was living in Phoenix and part of his retirement plan was to move from Phoenix back to Boise. And I was lucky enough to spend two days with him in the car, driving from Phoenix to Boise. And we talked about a lot of things. Cause it had been, you know, it, it had been many years since we had lived together, lived in the same town even. And there was just a lot of catching up to do. And I've. I remember, you know, we talked a lot about his plans for how he was going to spend his retirement. And. He had just such great. He w he just told me about all of these great things he had planned. He, he was a drum. Major. Is that wait, is that what you call them? The guys in the marching band with the drums, he was the lead drummer. In the marching band. And so in retirement, he wanted to join a garage band for old timers. And play the drops. And because he was moving back to Boise, he wanted to get back into snow skiing. He was looking forward to traveling to Europe, which he had never done. He wanted to learn how to fly fish. He was planning to golf every day that the weather would allow. In fact, he was building a home. In a golf community to make that happen. So we just, we had hours and hours of great conversation of this beautiful idea he had of retirement. And how he was going to spend it. So lots of bucket list items, and I was just so excited for him in his retirement. Because, you know, I mentioned he was building a home, uh, in this Gulf community. He retired, moved to Boise and lived with us for five months because his house was still being built. And. So his birthday, he moved in with us in July. He closed on his new house on December 13th. And. Moved in to, you know, just started moving in. And two weeks later before he could unpack all the boxes. He had a heart attack and died. So those social security benefits that he was so worried about maximizing. He received five social security checks. He worked full time for 45 years of his life and put off so many things. I mean, he had all of those big plans. Of what he was going to do in retirement. And those all died with him that day. He wasn't actually going to travel to Europe. He wasn't going to play in a garage band. He didn't get back into snow skiing. He never learned how to fly fish. So. Those big plans for retirement. The ones that he put off until he retired or the time was right or someday. If he never, he never got a chance to do any of those things. So the most important lesson my dad taught me. It wasn't how to drive a stick shift or change the oil in my car. It was to go and do all the things. Stop waiting until retirement. Or until the time is right or someday. But go and do go, go do the things and do them now. You know, the one thing I know for sure is none of us is getting out of here alive. And unfortunately, none of us know when our time is up. My dad only got 66 years and. As far as I'm concerned that that's not near enough. The best gift he ever gave me. And. God, there were so many, but it was to stop waiting. To be intentional about how I spend my time. So today I'm passing along that lesson to you. In the hopes that. You will figure out what you want to do. Who you want to be around? How you want to live your life, how you want to spend your time. And go do it. Figure out what's on your summer bucket list and get busy checking those things off. Figure out what's on your big 100. And get busy making those things a reality. Because none of us are promised a beautiful retirement or a long retirement or a long life. But that doesn't mean that we can't be intentional about how we live every single day between now and when time is up for us. So my question to you today is. What's on your summer bucket list. And maybe. More importantly, what's on your big 100. What are things. Steps decisions things you could do in your life today. That would make a profound impact on where you're going in your life. That would make you proud. Of how you're spending your time. I hope that you start making those a priority. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I'd love it if you would take a moment and leave me a five star review so that we can spread the word to other mid-life women. Then join my mailing list. The link is in the show notes. And if you're ready to make midlife your best life, you can also find out more about how to work with me in the show notes. I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session.