Bucket list turned Eco Mindset Journey for my 40th!!

How did I get here, in my fortieth year?! Seems only a moment ago since I turned thirty!!

Today is the day where I have exactly a month to go before I reach the heady age of forty! Oh my!!  So what exactly is the big deal with it all, why do I feel so unready for it?  I mean obviously when I think back to turning thirty and how that made me feel, well it certainly can’t get any worse…. Can it get better though? Can I fundamentally improve on entering my fortieth year than how I entered my thirtieth one?  Part of me is looking at me writing this and thinking, what are you on about, you are not forty are you? Well who’d have guessed!!  Yes it is looming and I want to embrace it wholeheartedly, I really do.  It’s just that a lot happened when I became thirty and I suppose perhaps it is a reminder of slightly less and uncertain times in the world of Amie Alissa Watson.  A reminder of how wrong I had got things.  A label to a time when I really didn’t have things sorted, in fact for my twenty ninth year I very much had no clue.  Funny that as I reached thirty more of my life came in to focus and it allowed me to finally gain the courage to reach into the depths of my heart and my life and to discover what I really wanted out of life.  How I really wanted to live my life and how I could do it all.  Its just things don’t always quite work out how you think they are going to (although deep down I did know exactly how the horizon appeared) I just was not ready to accept it.

My journey with a bucket list...

Over the years I have loved the writing of lists!!  So when it comes to writing such important ones I get a somewhat different point of view.  Feeling slightly more perturbed by the possibilities, by the potential of the outcomes of the list and yet an even more sense of pride when I have completed these life altering lists!

So I have lists that stated the things I would like to do before I die – in true bucket style – some obvious and some not so.

Then I had a list of things that I wanted to do just because I wanted to do them, with no foresight as to really how to do them and with no true thought behind them.  Within which I became despondent about not ever having the money to do the things on the darn list.  That’s when I just kind of thought and wrote a list of things that I thought were more likely to happen, more achievable shall we say.  I at least knew then that I would feel good about actually ticking and crossing them off.  It turns out that that is one of the worst ideas of my life as it seemed everything that was on that particular row of lines was the exact opposite to what The Universe had in store for me at that particular time of life (sometime around the thirty ish mark) so that little lot turned to shit!!

Bucket list writing

Making lists is one of my favourite pastimes!

Sneak peak of the dreaded bucket list from 2008:

  • Hot Air Balloon Ride – not yet
  • Go on tour as Singer / Musician – not quite
  • Release an Album – does an ep count?
  • See Penguins in the Arctic – nope
  • Visit & stay in an Ice Hotel – so close but nope
  • Have a magical wedding with (Ex-Husbands name deleted out!) – was a great day, magical, but nope
  • Have children – very definitely yes
  • Travel to Mexico – not yet
  • Get a tattoo – ooh ooh ooohhhh yes, I did this, well actually I got four (still counts)
  • Buy (Ex-Husbands name deleted out!) a 50 foot yacht – as if, I am way to scared of water
  • See the Northern Lights – hell yeah I did, twice in 2 days!!
  • Ride a sleigh – what Santa’s sleigh?!! What was I thinking putting this down? It was a tricky year but still!! 
  • Buy a castle / mansion – still working on that one (now my daughter wants to get one two so it is more likely to happen with two minds on it!!)

Anyway we must always forge ahead, no point looking back!!

I wrote a mammoth one for my new life and me in 2017 (added too within the last couple of years) and this appeared to be the best that I had ever written.  On my own, working hard, thinking deeply, cracking on and getting somewhere.  Finally seeing a shift in the way this old life thing works and certainly how getting your life dreams ticked off!!  I spent most of the next year just getting things in the right kind of order.  My kind of order, my kids kind of order and then it was easy, setting the realistic targets and making them happen.  Free to do the ones I wanted.  Free to decide to scrap the ones that actually I didn’t have a chance in doing.  The chance to finally not limit myself and feel like it was all worthwhile.  

 

Living my truth in the right way!!  Finally car camping…

Here is my original bucket list (likely from 2017) in its full entirety. Plus. This is the remaining list still to be completed (updated sometime in 2019 I reckon) sometime in the next couple of years:

  • Treehouse – Sweden
  • Stay at Ice Hotel
  • Canada
  • Hot air balloon flight
  • Lapland
  • Disney World
  • Japan 
  • Arctic Circle
  • Skinny dipping/wild swimming
  • Wild camping
  • Helicopter flight
  • Volunteer at soup kitchen
  • Road trip California
  • Spiritual journey – Nepal
  • New England
  • Skiing Canada 
  • Road trip – van
  • Sleep under the stars
  • Publish a book 
  • Safari
  • Release an ep
  • Go on tour
  • Release album
  • Shower in a waterfall
  • Go to drive in movie theatre
  • Go to Oktoberfest
  • Dance in the rain
  • Star gazing with telescope
  • Go to an air show
  • Present my own fashion show
  • Hold my own exhibition
  • Tell someone you love them and mean it  
  • Be part of a protest/activist
  • Volunteer abroad 
  • Grow willow on allotment
  • Visit Amsterdam properly 
  • Perform/sing at a festival
  • Write a book – lyrics and sketches
  • Build an eco house
  • Own an electric vehicle
  • Family bike rides
  • Have my own micro brewery/bar
  • Have chickens/ducks 
  • Live on a farm 
  • Write book
  • Vegetarian Christmas
  • Do podcast
  • Norway
  • Watch old classic movies
  • Paint balling
  • Clay pigeon shooting
  • Archery
  • Busking
  • Drive Nurburgring
  • Drive Porsche Carrera
  • Route 66
  • Write a play/film
  • Learn to play piano
  • Me Singer/Songwriter Musician
  • Be a local councillor for Green Party
  • Set up homeless volunteer sewing/free alterations 
  • Take flying lessons 
  • Have more baths 
  • Light candles/burn incense  
  • Hygge at every opportunity
  • Stop and breathe 
  • Out in a thunderstorm
  • Find the rainbows end 
  • One commune/recovery   
  • More help to nature
  • Roller skating
  • Eat less meat 
  • Open up emotionally
  • Car camp
  • Wild camp alone
  • Visit observatory
  • Build our own eco home
  • Carnivale

Living the best kind of life that is true and honest.

So the next step was to look back at my lists and see exactly if anything I had completed, achieved and finally scrubbed off!  

  • See Northern lights
  • Visit Reykjavik
  • See meteor shower
  • Visit New York
  • Go to Copenhagen
  • Paris Disneyland
  • Swim in hot natural springs/lagoon
  • See Take That (3 times and counting)
  • See Boyzone (once was enough)
  • Turin Brakes as often as I can I never tire
  • Band photo shoot
  • Record music
  • Sing live in front of people
  • See Red Arrows
  • Hogmanay Edinburgh
  • Get an allotment
  • Live in the country with a range oven
  • Eiffel Tower when twinkling (twice)
  • Venice
  • Skiing
  • Hot tub in winter
  • Get tattoos
  • Buy a house
  • Buy and live in my grandma and grandads house
  • Make my own wine and beer and cider
  • Get married
  • Have kids
  • Be single
Antler photoshoot
Home cinema
Candle making gifts for Christmas

What I achieved that I have not already mentioned? 

  • Build our own hot tub
  • Cut down/dig up our Christmas trees
  • Run my own business
  • Buy 2nd hand clothes/ limited wardrobe that makes me feel good
  • Start cycling/walking regularly
  • Reduce car use
  • Get the bus to and from school
  • Body boarding
  • Run in to the sea on New Year’s Day
  • Spot of wild swimming (more like a very quick wild dip shoulders in though so it counts for me!)
  • Proper fell in love and told someone I love them and meant it
  • Set up a climate action group
  • Joined as a member of Greenpeace, RSPB, The Woodland Trust, The Green Party, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust
  • Volunteer at Community Farm
  • Get milk and juice delivered
  • Use 100% Green Electricity powering our home and lifestyle
  • Have an allotment in which we grow willow
  • Make so much alcohol out of things in the garden/allotment
  • Make my own candles from recycled glass jars
  • Limited my waste output to mainly only recycled goods
  • Compost everything in site!
  • Set up and started world changing blogs and podcasts 
  • Written one book (finished ready for copy editing)
  • Writing eco columns/articles for local newspapers
  • Setting up a slot on a radio station – just need to send the winning show in for them to broadcast
  • Read a lot more
  • Get a projector and make our own home theatre, so cool sticking a movie on the wall!
  • Saw a Bittern in Barton
  • Saw Peregrine Falcons in Beverley
  • Saw Puffins at Bempton
  • Spotted a Great White Egret 
  • Saw a flying Crane at Top Hill Low
  • Car camped
  • Slept watching the stars/plus a few shooting stars for good measure
  • Sat in our hot tub watching the stars
  • Saved my boyfriend from drowning
  • Made some big decisions
  • Paid off debts

Surprisingly my big life plan felt like it was getting somewhere, so much so that I had done more from my lists in just a short space of time than I had the whole rest of my life.  I felt sad for me back then.  I felt glad for me right then.  So I wrote another one- things I had done from my bucket list and this list seemed too extensive, how can this be?  Me, did I really do all those things I have been pining for all these years? Yes, yes you very much did.  We have to celebrate the highs and lows.  How far we have come and how far we still have to go.  It is hard to remember to do that when we are so deep in it.  It is crucial to us growing even further.  It is a definite if we want to reach the heady heights of such achievements we can only dream of.  

Perhaps looking at all these lists is making you want to create your own list or perhaps do something else that is inspired and will have some eco impact.  Why don’t you see other way that you could Take Action with Slow Circular Earth UK

If I am true to myself I have managed to do more with my life in this last ten years than I have ever dreamed possible as it turns out I had managed to put quite a group together of classic achievements (in fact I am sure I haven’t even listed them all above).

DIY IBC Tank Hot Tub

Finally made and finished a DIY Hot Tub!!

So with some renewed vigour I arrive in 2021 about to set the next decade of my life in to action and all of that that has gone before, has been done, all that remains on the bucket pile seems less important and in most ways of no great significance to me anymore.  So the things that will make the cut need to be brave, be bold, be true, be you/me, be accountable and be together on this most wondrous journey.

Embracing the new on my 40th

Not as simple getting to and from the allotment without doing regular trips to town.

Drum roll please!

So here we come to the peice de resistance, the one and only, the changeable, non-limited The Universe has got my back list for this big year, to last this most special decade in my life, oh heck:

So what’s next on our forty for forty (and in no particular order)?

  1. Grow own Christmas Tree
  2. Handmade/2nd hand card & gift giving
  3. Lead a true zero waste life 
  4. Set up Refill Shed – build it?!
  5. Have own publishing imprint
  6. Write eco mindset journey book 
  7. Set up a social enterprise
  8. Get and use a (ideally an electric) van for work and travel
  9. Try surfing
  10. Work from home/van
  11. Be part of the community 
  12. Make a difference 
  13. Have an impact – creating newsletters/zines and eguides
  14. Read even more widely
  15. Read to the kids
  16. Get out every day and breathe
  17. Make a chicken coop and raise some lovely girls
  18. Build a summerhouse or writing/podcast space in the garden
  19. Permaculture our garden
  20. Make the kids a den out of pallets!
  21. Go as car free as possible to reduce our carbon footprint
  22. Develop a way to use biomass to cook and provide heating
  23. Become a best selling author
  24. Run successful eco courses and eco retreats
  25. Try Paddle Boarding 
  26. Go mountain biking – try a black route
  27. Get out and wild camp, car camp and experience sunsets and sunrises out there
  28. Visit people living lives in the wild
  29. Move our allotment to home
  30. Set up a rainwater collection zone
  31. Sit and play guitar/piano and ukulele 
  32. Build an outdoor cooking kitchen
  33. Develop a successful podcast and radio shows with eco guests
  34. Create and edit videos to share lifestyle tips
  35. Get out on my bike to do daily chores
  36. Make a trailer for my bike for eco deliveries
  37. Set up and launch slow fashion courses
  38. Adventures with the kids 
  39. Write for even more publications – local and national
  40. Gain a community across the globe to work together for the good of the future generations of this planet
Building a chicken coop

Getting on with things, set the task and cracking on!

So here we are at the end of the start of our little lists where we live our truth by following our bucket list – our forty for forty.  It is like anything a work in progress and some days we do better than others.  Sometimes we work really hard at it and some days it almost doesn’t exist.  We are so glad that we are living as we see fit.  Things go wrong.  Things don’t go to plan and sometimes you just need to live your life.  We are happy that this is even a thing for us and that it is definitely on our radar.  Feeling like we can help save our planet for the future generations in what little way we can.

If you start this little journey yourselves we would love to hear about it.  Any questions feel free to shout out and let us know what you think to our words.

How to create your own bucket list

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We hope you get on well with this challenge.  Don’t feel like you need to rush through it.  Take your time going through each one when you are ready and grasp each one with both hands and get in to it!

Life in this eco way is so rewarding when you give it a chance.  This second challenge merely scratches the service and you will be itching to delve deeper.  We love to see how you are progressing so keep us updated with how your eco mindset journey is going, send us an email, tag us in socials>>>>>