1001 Days Later

Yesterday was a date that had been on my mind for some years — 2.75 years to be exact.

Yesterday was the official end date of my 101 Things in 1001 days list.

To be honest, I checked out of completing the list a long time ago, but I thought I would follow up on what I was able to complete.

The final results? I accomplished less than a third of the goals, made progress on maybe a third besides those, and didn’t end up touching the other third.

Overall, I learned a lot about myself in the last 2.75 years and some of those lessons would not have happened had I not had this list. But, of course, they weren’t the lessons I was expecting to learn!

I thought this list would inspire me and motivate me, but I realized that my inspiration and motivation doesn’t come from lists like these. I’ve written about it before through posts like The Unintentional Life, The Reverse Bucket List, and Throwing Away My Bucket List; lists like these actually make me feel less motivated and more obliged (one of my least favorite feelings in the world).

And maybe it makes me a little strange, but I get very little satisfaction from crossing items off of a list. Also, tactics like implementing negative consequences to be hold myself accountable don’t really work for me, especially if the goals aren’t coming from the right place.

For me, goal-setting has to come from a place of joy rather than feeling like what I have or who I am isn’t “right” or “enough.” A lot of these goals were made to try to change who I am or force certain situations and that made me resentful and rebellious.

I think having goals can be a really great thing, but they don’t have to look a certain way.

You don’t have to write them down, keep checklists, use a bunch of organization systems, or have a million of them. They can be flexible, open-ended, and general. A goal could even be just a small, undeclared desire.

What it comes down to is: what works for someone else may not work for you and vice versa. And that’s okay!

But it’s taken me these past 2.75 years to realize that it really is okay. And that comes from spending most of my time trying to do all the tested-and-true methods of goal-setting that other people have done, thinking it would change something inside of me that I thought was broken. But to be honest, it didn’t leave me happier.

Instead, I learned something important about the application of “facts” and “statistics” in the pursuit of personal goals. We may try to use other people’s proven blueprints to lead to our own success, but there is no guarantee that they will work for us.

Just because something works for the majority doesn’t mean it works for us personally.

But I was kind of (subconsciously) operating under the belief that if something is true for most people, then it’s true for all. I mean, if 2 out of 3 dentists recommend a certain toothpaste, then that toothpaste must be the best, right? Or if 99 out of 100 bloggers have an editorial calendar, then that’s the way to do it, right? Isn’t it just a waste of time to try doing it any differently? That’s kind of how I was living my life.

But what I discovered in my own personal research method of trial-and-error is that I am way happier if I let things unfold organically. Naturally. Let things develop as they want to instead of trying to be in total control of an outcome that, many times, I’m not even sure if I want.

For example: I didn’t realize that in making a simple goal like “Watch a movie from every year I’ve been alive,” I was closing myself off from movies that didn’t fall into that criteria. I would think, “Well, why watch this movie from 1994 when I already have one checked off the list?” But I was completely missing the point because the whole reason I made the goal in the first place was just to watch (and enjoy) more movies.

Long story short: I got caught up in checking things off of a list rather than doing things for enjoyment and enriching my experience of life.

Instead of leading to growth and expansion, the way I went about goal-setting caused me to limit and shrink myself.

So, to be honest, when yesterday rolled around — April 23, 2015 — I was relieved. I felt released from a commitment I made with well-meaning yet misguided intentions.

Today, I feel like a brand new chapter of my life is about to start and that excites me.

I’m trying to enter into this new phase of my life with a spirit of openness.

I want less rigidity and more spontaneity.

Less trying to control and more going with the flow.

More peace, less guilt.

More forgiveness, less resentment.

More enjoyment, less pursuit of a final outcome.

More being in the journey and relishing the in-between, less rushing to an end-point or destination that might not actually exist.

Even though I’m in a much different place than I expected to be nearly three years after making this 101 Things in 1001 Days list, I can say that:

1. I trust myself more
2. I love myself more
3. I feel way less guilty about the good things in my life
4. I feel less discouraged about the seemingly negative or unfulfilling parts of my life
5. I feel more hopeful in general
6. I judge myself less
7. I am more patient
8. I am way more appreciative of the life I do have
9. I care less what other people think about me
10. I am way more comfortable in my own skin and enjoy my own company
11. I have found more of my own voice
12. I am learning how to listen to my own heart
13. I am learning more about what really matters to me
14. I am learning how our worth doesn’t come from anything we do or the title we hold, but who we are
15. I am learning how important it is to have faith and accept help and guidance — and that those aren’t signs of weakness but of humanity

The 101 Things in 1001 Days list may have not taught me these things directly, but its constant presence in the background of my life made me more aware of what I truly desire. It helped me to distinguish between what was really me and who I thought I should be.

Will I do it ever again? Even though I wasn’t as successful with it as I thought I would be, I’m thankful that I attempted it if only for the lessons I learned. That said, I don’t think I will do it again. If I did something similar in the future, I think I would have a list with less items and with a closer deadline. I’m thinking of making a 30×30 list (30 things before my 30th birthday) but with really fun, open-ended goals. More like prompts, really, than goals.

Will I attempt to complete the items on the original list at any point? I just may. Some of the things on the list I still want to do, it’s just that they aren’t necessarily a priority. Still, if I do complete them, I wouldn’t mind writing about them on this blog as an extension of the list.

Would I recommend you try it? Sure, why not? Everyone goes about goal-setting in a different way and it could be a really enriching exercise. But if you do attempt it, make sure you make goals that really matter to you and that seem like a lot of fun! Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to complete it and try to make goals that are flexible and open-ended. And remember why you are doing it — don’t lose sight of the experience in favor of trying to reach a finish line. Oh, and it’s really easy to think you have a ton of time (“I’ve got three years, pretty much!”), but I’d say try to get started with your goals as soon as possible.

And now… what you’ve been waiting for…

What did I actually accomplish? You can see my complete 101 Things in 1001 Days List for all of my goals, but here are the ones that I have marked as complete:

3. Visit Las Vegas

4. Visit NYC

5. Go to Chicago for Saint Patrick’s Day

8. Visit Ann Arbor & Chelsea

9. Visit Grand Haven (Coast Guard)

10. Visit Holland (Tulip Time)

13. Visit Detroit

14. Visit Frankenmuth

19. Visit 5 additional cities outside of West Michigan

26. See a local sports game

27. See a concert locally

37. Kiss someone at midnight on NYE

41. Create “Pony Express” binders

51. Get my bedroom to a “finished” decorated state

52. Watch a movie from every year I’ve been alive

55. Call my mom at least once a week

57. Keep a gratitude journal

58. Do the 365 Day photo challenge

67. Successfully complete my Master’s Program

68. Go to a Michigan State Football Game

70. Obtain a leadership position in an organization

71. Go a day without laughing at my own jokes

78. Meet a celebrity

81. Clean out my closet

86. Do something completely out of character for me

89. Watch at least 10 independent films

94. Fall in love

99. Floss every day*

*I skipped a few days but still hit beyond our 75% goal in order for it to be counted.

What about you? Have you ever attempted to do 101 Things in 1001 Days? Is this something you would ever do?