20 in 20 Bucket List: 20 Things I wanted to do

Exactly 11-months today, I sat down and shared 20 in 20 Bucket List of 20 lifestyle and travel goals I wanted to do throughout the year – who could have predicted the disaster that became 2020. When the year started, we were all very optimistic about the good the year would bring, I personally dabbed it the year of the achiever. I can tell you one thing for sure, I achieved something in the last 11-months, the ability to sleep through the weekend.

As a frequent traveller (hello 2020 travel committee), there is nothing I enjoy more than writing bucket lists of places I want to explore that year and 2020 was no different. I sat down and wrote in my travel journal in the big bold letter “20 in 20 Bucket List – 20 things I want to do this year” but little did I know that I would complete less than half of my lifestyle goals and even worse for the travel goals but since no one knows the future I wrote one anyway.

The idea behind this post is not to complain about this things I never got to do nor places I didn’t manage to visit but rather to reflect on my 20 in 20 Bucket list and reminisce about all the things and places I wanted to explore and will be adding to my next bucket list.

20 in 20 Bucket List: 20 Things I Wanted to do!

Whenever one sits down to write a bucket list, there is always an element of excitement and optimism as to how much of the bucket list realistically can be accomplished in the set time. I am a goal oriented person and find pleasure in wiring down my goals, planning for the future and re-adjusting goals that no longer search me or somehow become unachievable. We all plan out our goals with high hopes but I always ensure mine are accompanied by realism.

There is a difference between dreaming big and setting unrealistic goals especially without preparation and strategic tools that can support you to achieve your goals. Since reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, I have learnt that the reason my goals are failing is because I have no systems in place. Its important to understand the goals are good for planning your progress but it’s your systems that are for making progress.

With that being said and armed with the information I learned from Atomic Habits, I am ready to refine my goals and set-up systems that will ensure I make progress with my intentions and possibly even accomplish them. In the interim here are the 20 in 20 bucket list goals I wanted to accomplish this year.

20 in 20 Travel Bucket List

At the beginning of the year I was eager and excited to write this travel bucket list so I can include some of the new places I have always wanted to visit like Riga and Tallinn. I am still hopeful that I will be able to visit this new places but it just might not be this year. In the table below I have summarised all my travel plans for places I wanted to explore.

You will notice that I was able to travel to some of then places on the bucket list and the one I most wanted was Vietnam. We had planned and booked everything and thankfully it was all refunded and then a few days before my flight – everything got cancelled. We were gutted but obviously understood, I ended up going to Busan, South Korea instead of Hanoi, Vietnam.

2020 Travel Goal	Current Status
Malta	Accomplished
USA (NYC)	Accomplished
Vietnam (Hanoi)	Trip cancelled
Portugal (Lisbon)	Accomplished
Italy (Bologna)	Trip cancelled
Bulgaria (Sofia)	Trip cancelled
USA (Las Vegas)	Trip cancelled
Belgium (Antwerp)	Trip boycotted
Poland (Krakow)	Trip cancelled
Estonia (Tallinn)	Trip boycotted
Latvia (Riga)	Trip boycotted

2020 Lifestyle Goals

Now, when it comes to lifestyle goals – I am the help from the Atomic Habits book because this is one place were I don’t have systems in place to be able to accomplish the majority of the goals I set. I feel like travel goals are easy to accomplish provided you have the means and the time and there are no other restrictions you can easily accomplish them but for lifestyle goals – you need a good system in place to support and make progress of your goals.

When I was setting the lifestyle goals at the beginning of the year, there were a lot of changes I wanted to make to my (then) lifestyle that I believed would benefit me in the long run and I still stand by that way of thinking. After reading books on habits and mindsets, I now realise without the systems and right mindset – I was setting myself up for failure. No one wants to set goals aimed at making them fail but without systems its exactly what we are doing.

Lifestyle Goal	Current Goal Status
Read 10 Books	Read 2 books so far and got 4 on audible
Explore the UK more	Good standing – explore Wales and the Cotswold
Drink more water	Successful thanks to change in mindset/habits
Change 1 thing in my diet	Successful – switched to intermittent fasting improved my water consumption reduced sugar intake
Participate in 30-day exercise challenge	Successful- bought Peloton bike and compete in monthly challenges which I have completed all
Join touch rugby	Partial success – joined and started at the start of the year then stopped due to the pandemic
Complete tough mudder	Cancelled due to pandemic
Invest more in the blog	Failed as I did not define any systems of how I would proceed with investing more in the blog
Spend more time with family and friends	Failed thanks to the pandemic but managed to connect even more via Zoom
Be more intentional	Success – if there is one thing this year has taught me is being more intentional in my private and work lives.

I am happy with the progress I made with the lifestyle goals but there is still more work to be done and systems to set-up to enable me to progress with my goals. Even though this year have been one tough cookie and restricted our movements, I think I am an even tougher cookie and was able to use the lockdown to my own advantage. I very happy with how much I was able to accomplish on my 20 in 20 bucket list.

Did you set any goals this year? Whether you accomplished something or not, it doesn’t matter, this years has been an unusual year.