For a few years in my 30s, I made myself yearly goals to correspond to my age (35 goals for my 35th year, etc). The last one of these that I did was a 40 by 40 list to be completed between my birthday in 2018 and my 40th in 2019. These little goal-lists never extended beyond a year of time, and so never included any harder-to-reach goals.
Recently, though, I’ve been thinking about my long-outdated bucket list. I keep meaning to update it, and never seem to get around to it. Towards the end of January, I sat down to do that…and ended up working on another project instead: 50 things I want to complete by age 50. It ended up being a hybrid of those old yearly goal posts and my bucket list. And because I’ve liked having visual goal representations a lot over this last year, I’ve decided to draw this all out as well.
Quite a few of these are longterm bucket-list goals, and I hope to cross them all out over the eight years that I have to complete my 50 x 50 project. I finished putting this project together at the end of January, so instead of waiting to start until my 42nd birthday on March 1st, I’ve just given myself an extra month of time. Start date: Feb 1, 2021; end date is March 1, 2029, my 50th birthday!
In no particular order:
Visit a new-to-me National Park (ie any of them except Big Bend)- Take a belly dancing class or video instruction
- Go on a cruise
- Read 50 nonfiction books
- Hang birdhouses in my yard
- Enclose our back porch
- Visit 5 of the 15 US States that I have not been to yet (5)
- Possibilities include: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming (most wished for bolded)
Learn basic ASL- Grow my hair out (continuing to shave the undercut is fine though!)
- Take an aerial yoga class
- Pet an elephant
- Complete a mud run with a group
- Patronize 50 small businesses (no repeats)
- Lose 50+ pounds
- Go on a yoga retreat
- Use a climbing wall
Attend dinner theatre- Travel to another country (outside North America)
- Take a Bikram yoga class
- Finish xeriscaping our front yard
- Watch 50 new-to-me movies
- Get a new tattoo
- Complete my Running Bingo
- Complete my Hiking Bingo
- Go grape stomping
- Experience a Monster Truck rally
Shop at a farmer’s market- Take a pole-dancing class
- Meet up with a longtime friend that I’ve never met in person before (hello bloggers!)
- Eat at 50 new-to-me restaurants
- Plant a succulent garden
- Learn to use a camera in manual mode
- Travel to at least one of my longterm destination wishlist spots
- Possibilities include, in order of when I became interested in them: Indonesia, Austria, Jordan, Prague, Avignon, Florence, Turkey, Zambia
Play badminton- Go to a wine tasting
- Learn to create macrame
- Paint your pet for Nimi, Jojo, and Atticus (3)
- Go to a Renaissance Faire
- Complete a half marathon
- Hike 50 different parks
- Go through an escape room
- Volunteer at the library
- Go bowling
- Build a gingerbread house
Whew! That’s a bit daunting, but I’ve got eight full years! I can do this. Wish me luck!
Has anyone else done a multi-year bucket-list type set of goals like this before?
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Note: I’m going to be keeping track of my progress on a dedicated 50×50 page, so I don’t have to keep referring back to this post individually.
The Zen Leaf 
My last trip abroad was to Austria, to the Vienna Christmas markets in 2019 … little did I think that, 14 months later, I wouldn’t have been abroad since! Alaska’s on my list too 🙂 . I have been to Kentucky, though!
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Oh Vienna sound soooo wonderful! I didn’t realize the last time I traveled would be the last time either. We actually canceled our cruise vacation with the whole family November 2019 because of my oldest son’s issue with the navy (we didn’t know when he would be coming home). We were supposed to go to the Bahamas, Haiti, and a few other places during Thanksgiving week. Then Jason and I scheduled our cruise for May 2020 to Alaska, meant to be a celebration for our 20th anniversary (Dec 2019), but of course that got canceled and we’re still waiting to reschedule it!
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Hopefully next year …
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Great list! When you can travel again, you should come visit me and we can cross off some of those goals. I know we have wineries nearby in Maryland and Virginia, plenty of farmer’s markets and small businesses, and we can even build a gingerbread house. There’s also a huge Ren Faire in Maryland, it’s one of the biggest and oldest. I think it runs through the fall (I’ve also been to the Sherwood Faire in TX that I enjoyed very much, it’s north of Austin which is a little closer to you.) There’s also lots of local theater here so we could cross off dinner theater, and several national parks — did you know the National Mall is a national park? There’s also an aquatic water garden in DC that’s a national park. Can you tell I’m angling for a visit from you?
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I would love that!! I miss seeing you and I know you’ll know all the best places! I had no idea the National Mall was a national park! I guess that makes two that I’ve been to. I remember being in Maryland/DC/Virginia back in 2011 and some tourist that I helped use the subway system asked me where I was heading, and I said the National Mall, and he said, “Going to get in a bit of shopping, eh?” I just sort of fake-laughed and got out of there because omg hahahahahah! Dinner theatre and wine-tastings – these are things Jason just isn’t into! Though I now know a lot of women on my hiking group here that would love to go for a wine tasting once that’s possible again! Do you have any blind restaurants in DC? That’s not on my 50×50 list, but it’s definitely on my bucket list. I think it would be the most amazing experience!!
Do you know how long y’all will be posted in DC? I so regret I never had the money to go visit while y’all were in Germany!
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