Finding Purpose at 50: Set big goals to chart a journey of challenges, discovery, and personal growth
Fox Peak at 8,620 feet became my 17th summit of the year on June 25. Only 33 more to go.
I turned 50 in February 2023 and wanted to do something big to celebrate, so over the course of a couple months before my birthday I worked on a list of things I wanted to accomplish within one year.
What started as a fun little list has become a months-long quest that’s impacting my physical health, mental health, relationships, and sense of purpose. It’s also forced me to plan and prioritize, as well as form routines and habits that support the eventual accomplishment of bigger goals.
I’m approaching the six-month mark and starting to realize just how challenging and transformative this project is. Moreover, with seven months to go before I turn 51, I’m in no way certain I’ll succeed at crossing 50 goals off my list.
How I organized my 50 goals at 50 bucket list
Re-certifying for SCUBA was high on my bucket list. Here I’m diving a sandy portion of the Belize Barrier Reef.
In building my 50 goals at 50 bucket list, I put a lot of thought into creating goals that would be challenging, yet doable, and the reasons for the level of challenge vary: time constraints, actual technical or physical difficulty, logistics, or expense, to name just a few.
Because of the level of challenge, there’s no way I’m going to accomplish every goal on the list, so I created 60 goals, which gives me the opportunity to fail at, or let go of, 10 of them and still succeed at the overall project.
I also organized the list into four primary categories to try to make sure I’m working on goals that help me become a more well-rounded person. They are:
Athletics/physical
Professional
Personal development
Relationships
Monitoring my progress in these areas is also helping me understand the areas of focus for which I’m more motivated, and areas where I have opportunities for growth.
Setting big goals is teaching me about myself
Tower 3 Chute at Jackson Hole on my 50th birthday—one of three of Jackson’s tougher runs I wanted to link together to kick off my bucket list.
I’ll write at length about what I’m learning about myself and why setting goals helps with that kind of introspection in future posts. However, as I arrive at the five-month mark in this journey, I’ve already learned a few obvious lessons. Here are four:
My 50 goals at 50 list is a pretty accurate representation of my life’s dreams and aspirations—both right now and more generally. It should go without saying that any set of goals results from prioritization. And priorities shift throughout our lives for a lot of reasons: family, marriage, children, career, and health are just a few biggies. But many of the goals on my list now would have been similar to goals I’d have set in my 20s or 30s, and they seem to capture a good chunk of my core ethos.
The personal goals on my list are easier to achieve than relationship-focused goals. This seems pretty obvious with hindsight, but achieving milestones can be easier by yourself, and more rewarding with others. But accomplishing tasks with others requires coordination, communication, and a shared sense of purpose. In the first five months of my project, I’ve achieved more success at personal goals than relationship-focused goals.
Some of my big goals require formation of good routines or habits that support them, and that creates lifestyle changes that are shaping my life for the better. An obvious example from the list below is preparing for a 70.3 half Ironman in December. I haven’t started my 16-week acute training phase yet, but I try to log at least one swim, one bike, and one run each week, and that’s a habit that’s helping me feel great.
The biggest challenge to accomplishing my goals is time. I’m an able-bodied middle-aged man with okay financial means. I also have a nine-to-five job to do, marriage to nurture, house to maintain, and bills to pay. One of my more challenging goals, for example, involves climbing 50 mountains—a feat I might have been able to accomplish within two to three months when I was single and living in a pop-up camper in the mountains of Colorado in my 20s. But it’s a serious challenge at 50 to carve out the time to travel to and climb that many mountains in the midst of what you might call “normal” adult life.
As noted above, I’m learning about myself as I tackle these tough challenges—as well as considering the subjectivity of taking on challenges—and will write more depth about what I’m learning along the way.
My 50 goals at 50 bucket list
What follows are 60 goals, of which I intend to accomplish 50 before my 51st birthday on Feb. 1, 2024. I’ll return to this post periodically to update my progress. Note: many or all of the relationship-focused goals are redacted to protect the privacy of my friends and family.
Follow this link to see this list updated with items I’ve completed.
Athletic/physical goals
X Ski Alta 1, Tower 3, and Saratoga Bowl at Jackson Hole for 50th bday.
X Ski five lines in the Cirque at Snowbird
Ski Big Couloir at Big Sky
X Ski 50,000+ vertical feet in one day.
X Meet intermediate level marks on bench, deadlift, squat, and shoulder press
X Climb 50 peaks of at least 1,000 vertical feet. Sibling peaks climbed same day must have at least 300 feet of prominence.
X Climb and/or ski Hayden Peak, high point in the Owyhee Mountains near Boise
X Do a 100-mile day on the road bike
X Do a 50 mile day on the mountain bike
X Do a sprint or Olympic triathlon
X Run a half marathon
X Do a half Ironman triathlon
Learn to surf
X Kayak the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River.
X MTB in Sedona
X Fast for 24 hours.
X Polar bear club--stay in for five minutes
X Achieve intermediate level one-rep max on squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press.
Professional goals
X Do ICS 300 training for day job.
Do ICS 400 training for day job
X Write 12 or more SEO blogs for Tackle Tough Things.
X Write book reviews for Tackle Tough Things about on-topic books.
Start Tackle Tough Things articles focusing on other people and the challenges they take on and overcome.
Get/produce professional recording of Why Do the Horses Run, a song I wrote, and try to sell it
X Do five specific events and/or actions to Market Deception at the Diamond D Ranch.
Resume writing Cade Rigens’ second adventure (sequel to Deception at the Diamond D)
X Write an essay about faith: specifically the difference/similarity between Christian faith and native American faith (for Cade’s character arc in above manuscript)
Personal development goals
X Read 20 books.
X Re-certify for SCUBA.
X SCUBA dive somewhere cool.
X Average 10k steps per day over course of the year.
Keep average annual weight below 185 for the year and weigh 175 at least a little.
X Schedule/get a colonoscopy.
X Do a detox/elimination diet with 100% compliance over three weeks.
X Try 50 new recipes.
X Do at least 10 drawings or paintings:
X Go somewhere international.
X Camp somewhere new in the western U.S.
X Spot first 50 birds for life list.
X Write in gratitude journal at least 50 times.
X Work on day-to-day positivity
X Create a proper sleep schedule/wake up earlier
X Visit at least 10 U.S. states.
Identify and execute at least five medium to large house projects.
X Reduce idle iPhone screen time.
X Donate five pints of blood.
Relationship goals
X Spend one-on-one time with Mom
X Spend one-on-one time with Dad
X Spend one-on-one time with my brother
X Spend one-on-one time with my nephews
X Send thank-you notes for all gifts and sometimes for visits
X Write a letter to one old friend per month
X Goal redacted to protect privacy
Help Dad tile his shower
X Goal redacted to protect privacy
Goal redacted to protect privacy
Goal redacted to protect privacy
Final goal (uncategorized)
Get a tattoo that celebrates completing 50 items on this list (and this can be #50)