A Realistic New Year Bucket List
30 simple ideas to make 2022 better
“New year, new me”, endless lists of resolutions, promises that can’t be kept, failing at your plans and crushing disappointment — not the things you want for the new year.
It’s okay to reflect on the past year and have dreams for the one to come. It becomes problematic when you make unachievable goals. It’s stressful and after a week you feel like a failure. Why would you need that?
We all want to have a better year, improve in some areas, do something fun, and challenge ourselves. Let’s do it but in a healthy manner.
I thought long and hard about the things I’d like to do next year and the person I want to become. You can join me on my journey. It’s way more fun to do it together.
Here’s my bucket list for 2022. It’s simple, fun, and challenging, but not too much. Here we go.
1. Enroll in a new class
Learning new skills is a must. It’s pretty cliché to have it on the list. However… We can make it fun.
Let’s enroll in a class that is extremely unexpected for you. Break all stereotypes and opinions people have formed about you.
Are you clumsy? Start dance lessons or skating. You’re seen as a very delicate and soft person? Learn martial arts or start playing ice hockey. Shy or nerdy? Try pole dancing. Bad at math? Learn programming. Hyperactive or impatient? Try making jewelry or crocheting.
Surprise everyone and most importantly — surprise yourself.
We can do more than we give ourselves credit for. We are capable of so much and we shouldn’t limit ourselves to the things that are expected from us. Let’s go outside the box.
I’m starting pole dancing classes next week. Wish me luck.
2. Read books from as many different genres as possible
Reading is also expected on such a list. It’s all about expanding your mind, your beliefs, and dipping your toes into new waters.
We tend to gravitate to what’s familiar. Let’s challenge ourselves and expand our horizons.
There are so many different genres for books. Adventure, fantasy, romance, thriller, horror, mystery, children, sci-fi, biography, history, contemporary, self-help, poetry… The list goes on.
I thought that I don’t like fantasy books. Then I realized I haven’t even read one. How can I say I don’t like it if I haven’t tried it, right?
Let’s learn a thing or two about ourselves and the world around us. What’s a better way than reading books that are outside our comfort zone?
3. Write a poem
It can be silly, weird, it doesn’t even have to rhyme. Let yourself loose and see what it brings you. Pick your brain, reach the farthest corners, and put it on paper.
Simple mundane things can inspire a beautiful poem. Give yourself permission to notice and hear what you have to say. Then say it.
4. Make a new friend
This is probably the hardest one. You can’t force friendships and meeting new people as an adult is difficult.
With time, you tend to grow apart with some of your old friends, or your ways simply separate. It’s inevitable. That’s why it’s important to form new relationships.
It takes enormous effort sometimes. Especially for more introverted human beings, am I right?
It’s easier to meet new people if you share hobbies. So taking new classes might be your new friendship pool. Let’s go fishing.
5. Have a nude photoshoot
That’s a random one, huh?
It’s not necessarily a photo shoot that involves professional photographers or full nudity. I simply encourage you to explore your body, see it in a different light, find beauty in your forms.
A lot of us feel ashamed about certain parts of our bodies. It’s a norm to hide them under a couple of layers of clothing and not look at them.
It’s weird that looking at your own body can feel shameful or awkward. I want to change that.
Take a selfie, look at your body through a camera lens and see it as an art piece. Fall in love with it. Art doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. Why do bodies have to?
6. Make a piece of furniture
Okay, maybe this is even more random.
For some reason making something with my own hands, or giving an old piece of furniture a new life, makes me immensely satisfied.
In my home, I have a beautiful shelf that I made from an old kitchen cabinet that was a part of my parents’ wedding gift. It’s a piece of family history and I’m happy to have it. I’d love to have something else. Maybe you would too.
7. Go to a dentist
I feel like they’re getting exponentially more random…
I have a confession to make — I’m scared of dentists. If nothing hurts, I’ll avoid going to one till something starts to hurt, and then I’ll wait for the pain to pass. It’s a bad habit.
Dental health is important. Let’s not ignore it.
8. Have a weekly therapy session
Actually, I feel great. Better than any time before. I took care of a lot of problems last year, so there isn’t something particular bothering me right now.
However, it’s still important to verbalize your thoughts and feeling so you know how you feel.
Some of us will need professional help, some can have great friends and discuss their life with them, some will need to simply write their feelings out and some will need an hour a week just to sit and think. All of those methods can be interpreted as therapy.
So my goal is to dedicate at least an hour a week to tangle my thoughts. To book an appointment with a therapist, a friend, or a diary. Whichever feels best that week.
9. Donate blood
It’s important to give as much as it is to receive. I’m not a superman but I can save a life or two by donating blood.
The last time I tried, my blood pressure went over the roof because of anxiety so I’m hoping this year I can do it. You’re welcome to join.
10. Draw something you enjoy
I can’t draw at all. I couldn’t draw when I was a kid too, but I enjoyed it. It would be great to do something I suck at and try to enjoy the process.
Find your equivalent and do it!
11. Write a letter
I love writing letters. I love receiving letters even more but it’s a rare occurrence. Let’s make it less rare.
Write a letter to your significant other, sibling, parent, a newly made friend, an old friend, a pet, your favorite store, a stranger, or even yourself.
There’s an amazing tool futureme.org, that lets you write a letter for your future self.
There’s no better feeling than forgetting about such a letter and receiving it in your email. That solves the problem of not getting enough letters.
12. Buy yourself flowers
I feel like we don’t get enough flowers too. I have never bought some for myself. Simply to celebrate life.
Let’s celebrate.
13. Change a clothing piece and make it your own
Sew different buttons, add a collar, a new patch, write a quote on your jacket or draw a picture — it all depends on your skills.
You can make a piece of clothing unique by adding unique details. Use your superpower.
14. Educate yourself on an important subject
There are so many things I don’t know enough about. It takes effort to study something and I am willing to put that effort in.
Take a class on political, humanitarian, ecological, or any issues that you feel you don’t understand enough about.
People face problems that we didn’t even know existed. This year I want to be less ignorant.
15. Make a dessert without a recipe
I want to create new things this year. I want to think with my brain of something that didn’t exist before (at least that didn’t exist in my life), and I want to make it.
A dessert sounds simple enough. The outcome most probably couldn’t disappoint.
16. Go camping
Last year I fell in love with camping — feeling one with nature, enjoying the peace and vastness of it and oneself.
I know some people don’t enjoy the bugs, no showers, and other inconveniences, but I believe it’s worth it!
17. Visit an art gallery
It’s important to consume art. It’s one thing to watch some pictures of paintings on your computer and a completely different effect to see them in front of you.
I want to see art, feel it, contemplate it. I am what completes the art — the audience.
Art needs us as much as we need it.
18. Be a tourist in your city
We travel to new places because it’s exciting. We go to museums, galleries, visit statues, churches, local restaurants, famous buildings, and more.
I can bet, you haven’t visited all of such places in your city. So those places are as new and exciting as the ones thousands of miles away.
Take your backpack, a camera, make some coffee in your thermocup and go explore, take pictures, learn new things.
It couldn’t be easier to travel.
19. Pet as many dogs as possible
Actively seek to pet a dog. It always makes you happier so why stop yourself? It also works both ways, because the dog enjoys it.
Give and receive happiness any way possible.
20. Get a new pet (especially if getting a new friend otherwise didn’t work out)
If you dreamt of having a cat, a puppy, a fish, or any other living being — go for it this year. Of course, only if you can afford it financially and timewise.
I see plants as pets too. It’s in the plans because now it’s all I can afford to take care of.
21. Sing karaoke in public
Maybe I’m weird that I haven’t done it. I love singing and I want to perform for a bunch of strangers who don’t give a shit.
My go-to karaoke song would probably be Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. I bet I’m not original.
22. Try a new foreign dish
It’s another way to travel not leaving your town. I will probably never go to Thailand, but I can go to a Thai restaurant in my city and have a taste of it.
Once again, traveling has never been easier.
23. Learn about investing
It’s something that I’m dreading but I know I need to do. Everyone does.
It can change your life. For better or for worse, so you need to educate yourself to take advantage of it.
24. Meet a celebrity
This is the first thing that doesn’t depend on me. Either my path crosses a path of a famous person, or it doesn’t.
However, if I see a person I admire, I challenge myself to interact with them if it’s appropriate.
Will you accept this challenge?
25. Invest in better sleep
As I grew older, I fell in love with sleep. Sometimes it’s the most exciting part of the day.
I know, sad. That’s why I’m making the list.
In all seriousness, the quality of your sleep is important. Buy comfy pillows, better bedding, soft pajamas, a diffuser, anything you need to sleep better. Treat yourself.
26. Eat breakfast (and stop pretending that you’re doing “intermittent fasting”)
I don’t think your coworkers appreciate the growling of your stomach. It most certainly doesn’t make you comfortable.
Your stomach is not a musical instrument, let’s feed it.
27. Take pictures with a film camera
There’s something about holding pictures in your hands, seeing your thumb in the corner of the picture. It seems more alive and real. You have a physical piece of the moment and you can hold it.
When you take pictures with a film camera, you contemplate every shot, you put more effort into it. Those pictures hold more weight. And the joy of getting your pictures developed is the excitement that’s hard to match.
28. Go for a long walk with yourself and your thoughts only
It can be one of your therapy sessions with yourself. It’s good for your mind and body.
There’s so much to think about and to notice around you when you walk without any distractions. It’s underappreciated in our society.
29. Visit a flea market
So many treasures hide in flea markets. Vintage dishes, tools, clothes, art — and all of them have more character than any new mass-produced thing in your local Target.
I want to appreciate old special things and have them in my home. They’re beautiful to look at and they have history. I want to be a part of it.
30. Give yourself permission to be lazy
Let yourself not do anything sometimes. Just be bored and see where the boredom takes you.
If it takes you on Facebook — not ideal. Try something else.
Be creative, sleep all day if you need it, look at the clouds, watch people on the street, just be. You don’t have to be productive all the time. Sometimes it’s enough to simply exist.
I’m excited for 2022. So much of it depends on your actions and efforts. Put yourself first, do what makes you happy, challenge yourself and make everyday life more exciting.
I hope the list inspires you to try new things or remember some old good habits. Tell me what’s on your bucket list for 2022. All ideas are appreciated.
Good luck with your goals. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Remember, you’re doing it for you, not anyone else.
Let’s enjoy ourselves and have a good year.
