Ditch the To-Do List; Start a What Wants to Happen List Instead

And in the process, you might just end up designing a more meaningful life and career.

I used to love to-do lists.

✔️ Making them.

✔️ Following them.

✔️ Checking items off them.

In all honesty, I was also the person who’d add an item to the list AFTER I had completed a task, just so I could check it off. (Raise your hand if that sounds familiar. I know I’m not the only one!)

So yeah, to-do lists used to be IT for me. They represented the best possible way to move forward, feeling good about removing tasks off my plate. Looking at a long list of items, each with a beautiful checkmark next to it, made me feel accomplished, organized, and productive. It made me feel like a person who has her act together and could follow through on whatever project or task needed her attention.

Now, I am a person who has her act together (most of the time), and I do follow through on commitments, professional and personal alike.

That said, until this year, I never reflected on what the items on my to-do lists moved me toward and how checking them off helped me grow personally and professionally. Often, the tasks were simply things to do, transactions that needed to be completed, even if they may not have added meaning to my day.

The truth, as I’ve now realized, is that the ultimate goal of those to-do lists was to check items off them. I wasn’t accomplishing anything other than doing things. What’s worse, the quantity of items checked off seemed more important than the items themselves, which created a vicious cycle of continuously growing to-do lists with more and more items that needed to be checked off.

It’s like the more items I checked off, the more items I needed to check off. Ugh. I feel exhausted just thinking about all this checkmarking I used to do.

Then last fall, as part of my goal to become an Associate Career Coach through the International Coaching Federation, I completed a Certified Strengths Coach program with The Academies. Through the program, I learned about the trainer’s holistic approach to strengths, about my own strengths as a coach, and about leveraging strengths in coaching and team sessions.

I was also introduced to an activity that has completely upended how I go about my days — and life — clarifying and achieving personal and professional goals. It’s an activity designed to help you uncover your soul strengths, the strengths that help guide you in what to focus on and choose.

That activity was creating a 30-item list responding to the question, ‘What wants to happen?’

Simple, right?

Yet, so powerful.

This is the question that helped me confirm my decision to make 2022 a gap year of sorts, an opportunity to break from traditional full-time employment, so that I can intentionally explore and dive into personal and professional activities I’ve been neglecting for way too long, including traveling, teaching, spending time with family and friends abroad, volunteering, reading books just for fun, tutoring, and writing.

What is a what-wants-to-happen list?

Unlike to-do lists, which often focus on transactional tasks that need to be completed and which place higher value on quantity over quality, a what-wants-to-happen list forces you to dig deeper, free yourself of constraints like fear of failure, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome, and put down on paper or your device of choice a list of wants across multiple categories (personal development, career, health, finances, relationships, etc.).

It’s really a pretty simple process. It could also be quite challenging, however, if you are not used to giving form, shape, and space to your genuine personal and professional wants.

Want to try it out? Here’s how to go about it:

Step 1: Block 5–10 minutes of quiet time.

Step 2: Grab a pen and paper or your electronic device of choice. You could also record yourself listing the items, though I recommend physically writing them down if that’s an option.

Step 3: Focus on what you really want to happen in different areas of your life.

Step 4: Freewrite at least 30 items.

The items could be personal (color my hair red; reach out to 2 friends I haven’t heard from in a while; walk 30 minutes every day) or professional (publish an article on Medium; take a video-editing course); they could be small (take a photo of my child each day) or big (move to another country for a year); they could be vague (do something creative) or specific (take an oil painting class in Paris).

Be careful not to stop yourself from adding an item on the list because you think it’s ridiculous (or because of some other similarly ridiculous reason). This is why timing yourself and freewriting are key to the activity.

Allow yourself to see what truly wants to happen.

My initial list of 30 wants has grown to 55, some of which I’ve already made happen as we’ve passed the halfway point of 2022:

1. I spent the first three months of the year exploring the Southwestern United States, enjoying desert views, learning about life in arid and semi-arid areas, and connecting with new and familiar people.
2. I’ve gone back to writing more regularly (hence my commitment to joining Writer’s Hour with the London Writers’ Salon), and I’m now even experimenting with submitting my writing to publications.
3. I have stretched my coaching skills outside the familiar space of higher education, and in the process, I’m saying ‘yes’ to activities I’d have not even considered previously. For example, at the end of August, I’m joining a summer debate camp for high school English learners as a camp facilitator.

None of the above would have happened if I had not created that initial list of 30 items as I challenged myself to respond to the What wants to happen? question.

Why does it work?

What the items on my what-wants-to-happen list allowed me to do is bring forth ideas, activities, and reminders that are meaningful and valuable to me but that for one reason or another had continuously been squashed down. The soul strength exercise shined a light on what I really want to focus on, so that I can lead a more purposeful and meaningful life.

All I had to do was notice them.

Once I saw them written in front of me, they became real. They also suddenly seemed possible, even the outrageous ones like “visit all 63 national parks in the United States.”

The latter actually made me realize that I could still use to-do lists, albeit sparingly, in order to keep track of steps I take on the way to making a want happen. I could certainly check off national parks as I visit them, but the larger experience of enjoying nature is what truly matters and makes my life meaningful, not the checking off of items.

At the same time, not all of the items on a what-wants-to-happen list can be checked off as completed. For example, something that came up on my initial list of 30 was “notice more.”

That’s not something I can check off a list and count as complete! Instead, it’s a reminder that has motivated me to pay more attention, outwardly and inwardly, as I go about my day.

And guess what?

I’m suddenly much better at noticing opportunities that align with themes that came up on my list. That’s even if when the item first appeared on the list, I had no clue what it could mean to me.

What’s even more fascinating is that, similar to the algorithms that bring to us what we’ve clicked on before, the more I pay attention to what wants to happen, the more opportunities I seem to come across that help me prioritize exactly what wants to happen.

Unlike the algorithms, though, the choice of what to focus on is in my own hands, not the hands of faceless corporations.

Final Thoughts

As I reflect on the first half of my gap year, I can’t help but acknowledge how the first six months of 2022 have felt like 6 years (in a good way!) because of how much I’ve explored, experimented with, and learned.

The first half of 2022 has not been easy, but it has been fuller and more meaningful and intentional than I ever expected.

Needless to say, the soul strength activity has now become a personal daily practice, a practice that ensures I stay focused only on what wants to happen.

What about you?

Whether you are still exploring possibilities, getting ready to switch directions, or preparing to try something new, take the time today to reflect on and jot down what you want to prioritize and choose in your life.

As you make your way through the second half of 2022, ask yourself, “What wants to happen?”

Then do yourself a favor and go make it happen.

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