fulfillment – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

There comes a point in adulthood when you look around at your own life and realize just how much of it was built from other people’s expectations. Parents, partners, coworkers, even strangers on the internet all seem to carry opinions about what a “good” life should look like whether that’s the classic white picket fence and 2 kids, jetting around the world or having that corner office. With the shorter days and colder nights which entice us to stay inside sipping a warm cup of tea, December has a way of handing us a quiet pause in the middle of all that noise. In that stillness you can ask a gentler and more liberating question: What if the best gift you give yourself this year is a life that actually fits you? Not a life you are supposed to want. Not a life that earns gold stars. A life that feels like home when you step into it.

Most of us carry at least a few pieces of life that no longer fit. A commitment you keep out of habit. A routine that once served you but now drains you. A goal you set years ago that you are still dragging around even though it no longer reflects who you are. Just like clothes that shrink in the dryer, some roles tighten over time until they restrict your movement. One of the most compassionate things you can do for yourself is to notice what feels constricting. If something consistently brings dread or resentment, it deserves a second look.

Try asking yourself: What do I continue to do only because I feel I should? What parts of my week feel like a performance? What drains me more than it fills me? These small gut checks can reveal more truth than grand resolutions ever will. Because often resolutions are about adding things to our lives when maybe we should be asking what isn’t serving us anymore.

Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery on Pexels.com

Permission to Want What You Want

Wanting something different for your life can feel almost rebellious. We are taught early that desire is selfish or impractical. Yet desire is really a compass. It points you toward what brings meaning. The permission you refuse to give yourself is often the permission you most need. You are allowed to want a simple life. You are allowed to want a bold one. You are allowed to want rest, creativity, adventure, peace or a mix of them.

Let go of the guilt around wanting something others do not understand. You do not have to justify your dream life like it is a court case. Your preferences do not require a panel of approval. They only require your honesty. After all, the only person who gets to live your life is you. They have their own.

Every person inherits a set of default settings. These can be expectations from family, cultural messages or values absorbed without question. Some defaults are helpful. Others keep you living a script that never belonged to you. December is an ideal moment to ask where those settings came from. Did you choose them or were they assigned to you? Are they aligned with who you are now or with a past version of you who no longer exists?

Letting go does not always require a dramatic overhaul. It can be as simple as replacing one outdated belief with a more generous one. It can be as quiet as deciding your worth is not measured by productivity. Sometimes the life that fits begins with subtracting what never matched your shape in the first place.

Crafting a Life That Fits

Once you clear the space, you can begin creating a life that feels right in your hands. Think of it like tailoring. Small adjustments can change everything. You might shift your morning routine to match your natural rhythm. You might redefine what rest means so it supports you instead of feeling like a guilty pleasure. You might choose relationships that nourish you instead of ones that keep you hustling for belonging.

Crafting a life that fits is not a single grand gesture. It is a set of choices made consistently. When something feels peaceful instead of performative, you are moving in the right direction.

A good life should give you room. Room to breathe. Room to change your mind. Room to fail safely. Room to explore new interests without embarrassment. If your life feels like a tight shoe, it is not a sign that you need to force yourself into it. It is a sign that you need to loosen the laces. When you prioritize a life that can expand with you, you trade perfection for sustainability. You also create conditions in which joy can actually take root instead of feeling like a visitor.

A Gift You Keep Giving Yourself

The gift of a well-fitting life is not wrapped once and placed under a tree. It is something you give yourself again and again. Through honesty. Through reflection. Through paying attention to what your life is telling you. You will outgrow some things. You will discover new ones. You will learn what brings you back to yourself. The point is not to build a life that looks impressive. The point is to build one that feels true.

As this year winds down, take a moment to appreciate the small ways you have already reshaped your life into something more authentic. And if you have not started yet, that is all right. The gift is not in the timing. The gift is in choosing yourself.

In an earlier post, I wrote about letting go of the wall while ice skating. The wall was a place of safety, it kept me from falling and allowed me to build up the skills that I needed in order to traverse the ice. After all, it is by definition a rather hard surface and falling on it of course causes pain and potential injury. Yet, the wall is very limiting. One can only go as far out as one’s arms reach. If there are many people clinging to the wall, then one cannot go faster than the slowest person. One does not know the joy of freedom even though freedom brings risk (as it always does).

If skaters only ever clung to walls we certainly wouldn’t get the phenomenal performances by the top figure skaters, we wouldn’t have hockey or speed skating. In order to be able to reach great heights one must be willing to take those risks. What we often don’t see if the number of times these top performing athletes have fallen. Those who stand on the precipice have a path paved in failure.

In order to truly live authentic, extraordinary lives, we have to be willing to forgo some safety and take risks. If you want to pursue a certain career most of us would have to take on a least some risk of taking on student loans and going to school. Even a technical school usually requires a modest sum of money which many of us don’t have ready access to. Even if you do have that money, you’re still risking having spent a good chunk of change in hopes that it will pay off. In order to find love and get married, you have to risk heartache and loss. If you do manage to find love and get married, you risk losing that love through death or abandonment. If you go on an amazing once in a lifetime vacation, you still have to travel which carries a risk. If you want genuine friendships, then you have to risk rejection. You may lose your current relationships in your pursuit to be more authentically yourself. The pay off to these things is worth the risk because otherwise you risk living a small, unfulfilled, lonely life.

Photo by Alexandre Cubateli Zanin on Pexels.com

Isn’t that what so many great stories are about? The person who risked it all and became famous? The person who made the big discovery or invented the next big technology. The person who became the hero. All of these stories require great risk and often personal sacrifice. Over and over again, the stories we tell require the protagonist to step outside of their comfort zone. It is the only way for them to grow and change enough to overcome the obstacles to their goals.

It’s actually the only way for us to grow and change as well. Without letting go and challenging ourselves how will we gain new skills to overcome life’s obstacles? Can we really risk not taking the risks? After all, if we haven’t pushed ourselves to go further then we may find that we aren’t able to keep up with the ever changing world.

We are taking a risk either way, but one way gives us an illusion of safety. We stay in the same dead-end job because it seems safer than looking for a new one or starting our own business. That is until the economy tanks and you lose that once seemingly secure job or your salary is no longer enough to keep up with inflation. The safety we had becomes our downfall because we aren’t in a position to pivot.

The truth is when we cling to the safety nets in fear of something bad happening to us we are choosing to let something bad happen to us anyways. I don’t condemn people who choose the wall and choose the safety net. After all, I’m a bit of a risk averse person myself. I have a lot of responsibilities and someone who is dependent on me. You, dear reader, may have children or other dependents. It is very difficult to choose the uncertainty that comes with risk. Research has demonstrated that people would rather choose the unpleasant reality that they know then experience the anxiety that uncertainty brings, even if that uncertainty would most likely lead to a better outcome. It is very difficult to fight that and we can come up with all sorts of reasons as to why we shouldn’t let go.

I don’t wish to lie to myself or to you. When we choose not to take the risk, we are choosing the certainty of a life that is smaller than what could have been. However for all my risk aversion, I, for one, do not want to choose a small life, so it’s time to let go.

Tag: fulfillment

The Gift You Give Yourself

Permission to Want What You Want

Crafting a Life That Fits

A Gift You Keep Giving Yourself

Take the Risk and Let Go