How We Make Our Family Bucket List

At the start of every year, our family sits down and makes our Family Bucket List. It’s our version of New Year’s resolutions.

Instead of focusing on what we want to “fix,” we talk about the past year and then dream together about what we want the coming year to look like. The goal is to reframe growth as something exciting; things we want to experience, learn, and enjoy together.

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Our bucket list is usually a mix of:

fun
educational
personal growth

We focus on things we’ll love doing, look forward to checking off, and that benefit our family in the long run.

How Our Bucket List Is Structured

Together, we narrow things down to about 10 categories, each with a fun title.

Each category has smaller experiences or habits we can “check off” throughout the year; just like a traditional bucket list.

When our family was smaller, we listed out individual goals for each person. As we grew, we shifted to a category-based approach instead. Now we name our goal categories and talk about what those look like for us and how we want to live them out during the year.

This has helped keep our goals flexible, realistic, and enjoyable.

An Example From Last Year

One of last year’s goals was Wizard Tales which encompassed the goals to:

Read through the Harry Potter series aloud as a family
Experience the full Lord of the Rings trilogy together

We did both!

We celebrated with a Harry Potter game day that ended with a showing of Deathly Hallows, and we enjoyed regular family movie nights for Lord of the Rings (paired with games, of course).

Other goals that year focused on:

becoming part of our new community
working better as a team
investing in our family’s future
making time for things we love, like pickleball

Why This Works for Our Family

Once our list is finalized, we print it and hang it in our home. (I love this frame!)
It’s a daily reminder of what we’ve decided matters most this year.

Our goals aren’t tied to strict timelines or unrealistic expectations. They’re not all meant to happen at once, and we’re not trying to overhaul our lives by February. Often we make challenges that are designed to take the whole year or make specific times more special like challenges focused on summer fun.

By focusing on shared experiences instead of pressure-based goals, the year feels exciting rather than overwhelming. We have twelve months to live into these ideas and to celebrate along the way.

What’s On Our Family Bucket List This Year

These are our categories. Each member of our family is able to add a bucket list item to them that we’d like to do and check off this year.

🍿 Grab Your Popcorn!

The kids loved our movie outings last year, so we’re doing more. We’ve picked a few films we hope to see in theaters, along with some live shows that feel fun and special.

🔋 ReCharged

This goal is about doing what actually restores us, whether that’s getting to bed on time or making space for activities that help us feel refreshed and grounded.

🍽️ New Foods, New Places

To break out of our usual dinner rut, we’re aiming to:

try one new recipe each month (or revive an old favorite)
visit a few new restaurants this year

We’re keeping it realistic: 3–5 new places total.

⭐ Track Success & Celebrate Wins

These go hand in hand. We want to notice the progress – big and small – and make a habit of celebrating each other. If you don’t track it, it’s easy to miss how far you’ve come so we want to make sure we’re noticing the changes and progress we’re making throughout the year. And when it happens, we want to make a point to celebrate, too!

🚶 Move Our Bodies

This look different for each member of our family, like “learn a skateboard trick” for my son, and walk in 6 new places for me. From pickleball to backyard sports to evening walks, the goal is simple: move more and enjoy it. These have the added benefit of supporting any fitness

🤝 Helping Hands

A reminder to be helpful at home and to serve our neighborhood and community through volunteering our time and talents. Donating to our church bake sale, cleaning up the local beach. All fun things to check off that fall under this category.

🗺️ Local Tourist

We’ve started a shared list of places in our town and state we want to explore this year. I’m especially excited to check off things like shelling on Sanibel Island.

👕 Looking Fresh

This one’s for everyone and especially me. We’re focusing on keeping wardrobes in better shape and intentionally updating a few things. I don’t love shopping, so this will definitely be a stretch, but a worthwhile one. I’m challenging myself to do this a little each season and not wait until the last minute before some special event or holiday that makes it more stressful.

🎲 Favorite Things

Because games are our job, it’s easy for personal favorites to get sidelined. Adam made a list of games he wants to bring back to the table this year, and we’re making space for those.