My 40 for 40 list

In five years time, I’m going to be forty years old. (Screaming face emoji.) Might sound stupid to say but, it’s an age I never pictured being. And yet, there it looms in the not too distant future.

A few years ago, my boss at the time had turned fifty, and had a list of fifty things he wanted to try and do in his fiftieth year. I really liked the idea and I thought I’d steal it for myself! A year is actually quite a short space of time to try and do so many things, so I thought if I gave myself five years for my forty things I could possibly be a little bit more ambitious. Recently losing a friend who will now never make it to forty herself has also spurred me on to actually committing to this challenge.

I’ve finally settled on forty things I’m going to do in the next five years. If you break it down (you can take the girl out of project management…) that’s eight things a year for the next five years, sounds pretty achievable, right? I’m blogging about it now to keep myself accountable, and plan to periodically update on how it’s going.

My ‘things’ are a mixture of:

Learning something new
Doing things just for fun
Going places that I’ve never visited before
Ways I can be charitable and give a bit back
Classic books and films I’ve never read or watched
Creating things

Some of them are a bit silly, and some might not sound that exciting, but they’re all things that I think I’ll enjoy because they’ll stretch me a bit, or are totally new to me. (I’ve also had to factor in my budget, my realistic amount of spare time, and having a family – hence “sail around the Bahamas” isn’t included.)

Here’s the full list of things to do – I’ll keep you posted how I get on. Would love to know what you think of the idea, and things that you’d add to your own list!

Learning:

Complete all levels of Italian on Duolingo

Take some self defence classes

Learn to juggle

Learn how to use a sewing machine

Learn all the countries in each continent!

Books to read:

Michelle Obama’s autobiography