• What's your bucket list walk? Tiago Rosado/Unsplash
    What's your bucket list walk? Tiago Rosado/Unsplash
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Having adventures with a purpose will bring more fulfilment in your life.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. – Henry David Thoreau

It’s really simple: you need a bucket list.

But not all bucket lists are equal. To bring happiness and fulfilment to your life, your bucket list needs to be more a than a badge which says ‘look how cool I am!’. For example, getting a tattoo or meeting Oprah may be fun, but they won’t necessarily bring you deep happiness and fulfilment. But taking on an extreme wilderness challenge with friends for good, such as hiking to Everest Base Camp or Machu Picchu for charity, will.

Bucket lists are an attempt to make life meaningful, to create memories and experiences which enhance the quality of your life. As Cheryl Bart, my good friend and serial extreme adventurer, often says: “Friends ask me if I have a death wish. I say, ‘No, I have a life wish.’” But you don’t have to climb Mt Everest or hike to the South Pole to live life to the full.

By adventure I simply mean experiences that include nature, adventurous physical activity and culture. These activities are particularly appealing right now because many of us are bored out of our wits living a lifestyle that’s no longer suited to our biology.

For millions of years our biology motivated us to escape from danger, which made life adventurous, and our body rewarded us with happy hormones when we did it. But today the biggest danger is our unhealthy lifestyle, and many of us aren’t scared of it. Fortunately, adventure is booming. Around the world, there’s a growing movement which rejects the boring, sedentary, hamster-wheel, screen-addicted, nine-to-five model of living in favour of adventurous living.

In fact, a recent report by Sandler Research shows a 46% growth in adventurous living between 2016 and 2020. These new adventurers are across all demographics and they are rejecting boredom in favour of wild experiences while many people are still plugged into their latest addiction or smartphone devices, getting their fix from ‘Likes’ and their news from Facebook. But for a bucket list to bring fulfilment and create a meaningful life, it needs to connect us to something larger than ourselves, typically to other people and their welfare.

Positive psychology research suggests this is the secret to a fulfilling life. Goals can motivate us to accomplish things, but the most motivating goals are those that are hard and specific. A fulfilling bucket list must contain difficult things that you work hard to achieve, with others, for a bigger purpose than yourself.

We must combine exhilarating experiences with the greater good. 

Tens of thousands of my clients have experienced this exhilaration by trekking to restore sight. Others have taken on bigger challenges like Everest Base Camp and Machu Picchu for charity. And extraordinary social enterprises have been created around the world to this end. Try one of these bucket list charity hikes and let me know how it makes you feel.

Fulfilling Aussie mini-adventures for bucket listers on a budget:

HIKE: Sydney, Mornington Peninsula, Sunshine Coast, Fleurieu Peninsula and Margaret River Coastrek, Team Trekking Challenge raising funds for Beyond Blue.

Fulfilling hard-core international bucket lists to take you higher:

HIKE: Mt Kilimanjaro, Machu Picchu, Great Wall of China or Everest Base Camp or with Charity Challenges

TREK: Kokoda, Cradle Mountain, Bhutan, Ladakh or the Camino Trail with Inspired Adventures

Di Westaway OAM, Coastrek Founder www.coastrek.com.au

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