the Impossible List

Hello, Reader!

We talk a lot about goal setting here; I’m a big believer in goals being a catalyst of productivity. I also think that, aside from day-to-day productivity and completing tasks, you can create goals for self-improvement and achieving your dreams. I’m sure you’ve heard of a bucket list before - a casual list of activities or achievements you’d like to tick off eventually. Well, an Impossible List is like a bucket list… but better.

The Impossible List is a collection of goals you would like to achieve, which can be as ambitious and out-there as you’d like - kind of like a bucket list. The difference is that when you achieve something, you expand on it creating a new goal to achieve. For example, if one of your goals was to run a 5k, upon achieving it, you’d create a new goal: run a 10k. Once you achieve that one, you create a new one again: run a 20k. It gets its name, the Impossible List, from the fact that it’s impossible to complete it as it’s expanded with every goal you achieve. Why is it better than a bucket list? Because it pushes you towards new achievements, perhaps even ones that seem unobtainable when you first start your Impossible List. 

I think it can be beneficial for me to share what my Impossible List is all about, although I don’t want to share exactly what’s on it - at the end of the day, your goals and aspirations are quite personal. My list is divided into four ‘categories’ of goals: Personal, Professional, Skills and Travel. In my ‘personal’ section I’ve got goals that relate mostly to environmentalism - veganism, less waste, etc. - but there is also a “read 50 books (start Dec 2018)”. On the other hand, in the ‘professional’ area, I’ve got some goals about the blog and my social media presence as well as my art. The skills I’m working towards are Spanish language, cooking and (one day) knitting and my travel goals are pretty basic - travel to [x] countries, visit every country in Europe, visit every continent. That’s pretty much it! I looked through others’ Impossible Lists online to get some inspiration and thought about what's important to me… and just wrote down how I can achieve them!

Making your own Impossible List is pretty straight forward. You don’t have to have a hundred things on your list straight away - the whole point is building on it! As I said, looking at other Lists for inspiration can be useful to get an idea of what you might want to put on yours. Think about what you really want to achieve and make it a specific, but not timebound, goal. For example, “become vegan for 30 days” rather than just “become vegan” or “become vegan before December”. This way, you can get started on them anytime without feeling overwhelmed or discouraged and without the goals expiring. The only rule is that you need to expand on each goal as they’re completed but other than that - you can go as wild as you want. 

Enjoy!

Love,

Agnes xo