Project Bucket List
How Project Bucket List Began
I’ve given myself 4 years to complete 100 challenges, as a deliberate attempt to get unstuck and rebuild momentum in my life. It’s led me to some of the most interesting places in the world, and introduced me to some of its most interesting people, and as much as it sounds like a fanciful lifestyle brag – it saved me, and it’s something that everybody can do.
Mike Pastor raised a point that cuts to the heart of where many men get stuck today: the sense that community has quietly vanished. A generation ago, if you wanted to try something new – shooting, sailing, whatever – you’d ask around, and someone would know someone who’d take you. That informal web of community held men up more than we realised.
Ask me 2 years ago and I’d have said that world is gone. See, at the tail end of 2023, I was in a bad way. I’d spend a day at work, then come home and scroll slackjawed through social media. I wasn’t seeing much sunlight, and I felt isolated away from everybody, and everything.
Taking Responsibility for Change
I remember one cold December morning, I was lying in bed, waiting for change, when I had a sobering thought. Nobody was going to make my life better for me. I could wait a million years, and I’d still be right there in bed. Nothing was going to change unless I changed it.
It’s one thing to know that you’re unhappy; it’s another to take real ownership and responsibility for the way you’re feeling. It’s a big hurdle to understand that, while help is out there, it’s up to you to go out and look for that help.
That’s where Project Bucket List began. I wrote down 100 things that I really wanted to do, and gave myself just four years to do everything. I’d have to radically change my entire lifestyle if I was going to accomplish this wild target, and that sort of change was one that I was desperate for.
The first challenge was actually coming up with the list itself. It’s hard to figure out what you actually want. As I got further down the page of my notebook, I started to struggle.
What do you actually want when you stop performing for other people and start being honest?
It took a full month of noticing what excited, intimidated, or inspired me before the list felt real. Finally, January 1st 2024 rolls around, and so, with a newfound sense of motivation behind me, I began.
Reaching Out and Reconnecting
One of the first things I did was reach out to a group of friends that I hadn’t met up with in about a year. We’d all been busy with life. When I invited everybody to rent a small boat with me, I expected a lukewarm response. Instead, I was met with resounding enthusiasm. We spent a weekend on the Norfolk Broads, talking properly for the first time in ages.
I’d reconnected with friends, and found the validation I needed – if you don’t ask, you don’t get. See, one of the most amazing things I’ve found is that community is absolutely not dead. The second I started reaching out to people, my diary started filling up.
Since then, I’ve joined conservation volunteers planting hundreds of trees at Colwick woods, been welcomed by a group of beekeepers, and traveled with herpetologists out in the Sonoran desert. All of these amazing life moments were shared with groups of people that I didn’t know before Project Bucket List. These people became collaborators, guides, and even friends. They weren’t closed off at all, I’d just stopped giving them a chance to say yes.
Stained glass, hiking groups, even a falconer – and Nigel from Men’s Minds Matter has just invited me to go surfing! I found that most people want to help, teach, involve, guide, or say yes. People hadn’t changed at all – I had.
Living Deliberately
The key thing is to make the deliberate decision to live deliberately. Put your phone down and make an active choice to try to pull yourself out of the hole you’re in. If you want to take conscious steps towards a life that you’ll enjoy more, you need to know what you want to do. I think that’s where many of us get caught up and lost. The answer sounds simple, but it does require real effort from your part – figure out what you want to do first, then take small steps towards it.
I’m now two years in, and I’ve completed 48 challenges on my list. I’ve been amazed, scared, and struck in awe at the spread of things I’ve done over the last two years, but the most radical change is how open I am to the world, now that I’ve experienced how open it is to me.
Research from Samaritans shows that men are less likely to reach out for support. I get that. I was there. But the truth is: most people are just waiting to be asked. And if someone can’t help – the next person will. Community isn’t dead. It’s just dormant until you knock.
All it takes is one small action: send the message, sign up, say yes, knock on the door. Men don’t need to be rescued – we need to be connected. And connection starts with the smallest ask.
Dan Davison is the creator of Project Bucket List, a four-year journey completing 100 challenges designed to rebuild confidence, connection, and purpose after burnout. He writes about the reality of change and the communities that form when we start saying yes. His full project is at dan-davison.com/project-bucket-list
