In my mastermind group a couple of weeks ago, one of our members asked, “if you were going to be gone in 3 months, what is the one thing you would have to do for the world? What’s the thing you would be disappointed if you didn’t teach or share that might change someone else’s lives?”
He was asking about Must-Dos.
I only learned about these this year when my sister and I went to New York in the spring.
She is the planner in the family and had been to New York before so I was happy to do whatever she wanted to do.
One morning she looked right at me and said, “what are your Must-Dos?”
“Uhhh” a little bit of panic set in, “go to Central Park?” Seemed like the right thing to do for a country girl and we were already doing broadway, the Empire State Building and had seen lady Liberty.
The question stumped me.
I always go to the restaurant someone else chooses. I always shop (or not) in the stores someone else picks. I always do whatever someone else wants and I’m usually fine with that.
It was a pretty big deal for me to even be in New York at all.
Until my sister asked me what my Must-dos were, I hadn’t even thought about them. Nobody had ever asked me before, including myself.
If we hadn’t gone to Central Park, I would have been disappointed. They were inside of me, but I wasn’t listening.
Must-do’s. Not the same as a bucket list. The must-dos are the things that make a bucket list feel complete.
They are that little things or the big things you feel inside.
When we start listening to them and we stop numbing them with niceties they begin to have a voice.
Listening to them doesn’t mean that you will become over bearing or controlling… it means you will feel validated, fulfilled and complete because you didn’t leave a piece of you wishing for a little bit more.
It’s worth figuring out because the must-dos are what make you feel complete.
Who do you need to talk to?
What do you need to see?
Where do you need to go?
What experience do you need to have?
What do you need to try?
What do you need to create?
What change do you need to make?
You have to do the thing inside your heart.
That’s where must-dos come from.
“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts.
You have to pay your electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.” – Cheryl Strayed