Thanks for this one, Allison!
On January 2nd 2010, I created a list of 101 goals that I thought I could accomplish in 1,001 days. I remember writing the list as a 20 year old with no real direction in life. It seemed, at the time, like the compass I needed to figure out where I was and where I needed to go. Maybe this is just the way I see it now; the amount of CHANGE I’ve gone through in 2.75 years is staggering, and I know that I owe so much of it to the work I put into this wonderful list.
Somewhere in that time I added a few extra goals and turned my list into 111 items to accomplish (although the plan was always to complete as close to 101 of them as possible) and later, I would begin to include other lists into my life; my 23 Before 23 & endless New Years’ resolutions. Yet this list of 101 goals was always imminently in my mind as something that NEEDED to be done. I grew out of some goals- 22 of them to be exact- and that’s fine with me. I didn’t know it at the start, but changing your mind about accomplishing something isn’t BAD. I had just set my sights on something bigger and better.
The last official day of the challenge was September 28th, but I knew before that day how many goals would be finished. The final tally is 78 of 111. Including the 22 goals that I have no more interest in accomplishing, that pushes my total up to 100/111. Those last eleven goals have been moved to my Life List, which is now the last remaining set of goals I have to accomplish (other than my New Year’s resolutions) and for now, I am totally okay with that.
To a certain extent, I already miss my 101. I’ve talked about it, thought about it, discussed it, and planned things because of it for SO LONG, it feels like saying goodbye to an old friend. It became more than one hundred and one things that I wanted to cross off. It became a starting point for so many other fantastic things that would come afterwards. It was a time of Great Change and I’m so proud of saying that I accomplished 80% of what I had originally set out to do- thinking I’d barely get through half.
It may just look like a list of things, but in the last 3 years it became more than that. I was able to actually do THINGS that I had always thought about doing but that I always forgot because they didn’t seem important enough. I was also reminded each time I opened that list of the bigger goals I hoped to cross off- going vegetarian, take more chances, post almost every single day on this blog for an entire year, and maybe the biggest of all, #86. Choose a program in school & stick with it… And be happy with that choice. This was such a big and important thing for me- to find direction in my life with school- something that felt so impossible to accomplish and yet here I am, living that exact moment, 3 years later.
A lot of people will tell you goals aren’t worth the effort. To those people, I say; you have NO idea what you’re missing. It may not be for you, but for me? It changed my entire perspective on life. This very blog became the space it is right now because of that list. I know it wasn’t the 101 goals that made all these things happen- I did- but in a way, I’m still so thankful that the idea of the challenge fell upon me when it did. I’m excited to see what I choose to do next. I debated for a long time whether or not I would write another list, and something tells me that I probably will. For right now, I’m content to take a couple months off & re-evaluate come the new year.
To see the completed list, click here!
Have you ever completed the 101 goals challenge or a similar one? How did it work for you?
