# Story 1 — The reverse bucket list

- **Episode:** [198](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/198.md) (2025-05-20)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** reverse-bucket-list, reflection, personal-growth
- **Time:** 4:01–11:27 (start 241s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/198?t=241](https://truthliesandwork.com/198?t=241)

---

[4:01] Leanne Elliott: The reverse bucket list is all about looking backwards instead of looking forwards. So I saw this in HuffPost, um, an article by Caroline Bologna. I think that's how you say her name. And it's pretty simple. Instead of focusing on what you still want to achieve, you take some time to reflect on what you've already achieved, um, the wins, the progress, um, just the things that you've managed to get through, like a really, a really tough year or a very sad-making Eurovision Song Contest results segment
[4:35] Al Elliott: Um, so this segment here where I keep talking over you, that's sort of tough situation
[4:40] Leanne Elliott: Yes. So psychotherapist Omar Tarem described it as, as this: a mindfulness exercise that could include anything from being promoted to learning a new skill to just rebuilding after a hard year. It's about recognition, not goal setting. Um, so, Al, I know you're kind of into the whole mantras and the manifestation. You've done a lot of that before in the past. Where— how do you feel about having a reverse bucket list to reflect backwards?
[5:09] Al Elliott: I honestly think, all joking aside, I think it is absolutely brilliant. I also think that you make up these names. We've got Caroline Bologna, we've got Who've we got? Something Torres. I'm sure you make these names up, but no, I think there's a huge— I didn't know anything about psychology, but I read a lot of the sort of self-help books. And so a lot of them are saying that you— that yes, it's great to have goals, but if you just continually look at the stretch between what you haven't achieved and where you are now, great, that pushes you forward, but God, it can get you down. And as someone who has been bankrupt with about £5.50 in their bank account, To where we are today. I know that that is such an important thing to do because even when I was bankrupt, I look back and go, look what I did. I was really pleased. And that's, that was some of my biggest moments, I think, of bankruptcy is I could have looked at it and gone, well, I, I did have a business and I did have 2 houses and now they both got repossessed and now I'm on the bones of my ass. But instead of doing that, I was like, look what I did. I bought a house at like 24. I bought another house at 27. I built a business. All right, didn't work, but I built a business. 20 people, 20 grand a week
[6:12] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[6:12] Al Elliott: So yes, I'm a huge, huge, huge believer in this
[6:16] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, and as you say, it's not necessarily about pretending everything's fine and falling into that kind of toxic positivity state. It's just kind of trying to take an objective view of what has been done, and the article suggests that this counters something that's called success amnesia, which is when you tend to forget what you've achieved because you're already fixated on what's next. That's particularly common in high achievers. What's also common in high achievers is imposter syndrome. And one of the key issues, if you do have imposter syndrome, is an inability to internalize your achievements and internalize your successes. So actually going through an exercise like this, sitting down and thinking about what you've achieved today, what you've achieved this week, what you've achieved this month, this year, could actually be a really effective way of combating imposter syndrome and actually starting to absorb those good things, which are also going to improve our confidence or our self-efficacy, as psychologists like to call it, which is a key part of our psychological capital, which helps us be resilient when everything's really, really tough. So there you go, a reverse bucket list. It is backed in science, mainly mindfulness science, and seems to be something that might be worth looking at. In terms of if you want to do this with the team, some suggestions here. So you can ask your team to reflect on one thing they've achieved this year. Not just targets, but personal growth. You can build in some reflection alongside goal setting in your performance reviews and one-to-ones. And for yourself, as I said, jot down 5 or 10 things your past self would be genuinely impressed by. I will leave a link to the full article in the show notes. What have you seen this week, Al?
[7:55] Al Elliott: Well, before we move on to that, I just want to say that I think actually, if you were to— maybe you tell me the psychology behind this, but My temptation would not be say, what have you done this year? But every week is to have a chat with either in a group or whatever basis and say, what have you done this last week that you're proud of? And it doesn't have to be you shipped some great big update. It could just be that you managed to get in touch with someone who you were trying to get in touch with for a few, you know, for a few months now. Every week then you'll get a little, little, is it dopamine boost? Serotonin? I don't know which one it is. But it gives you that boost because you're feeling like I've done something. And then you, then also allow it kind of like has that. There's lots of things going on here in my head. There's something called the Seinfeld, the Seinfeld something, Seinfeld syndrome or something, or Seinfeld something. And the idea was that Seinfeld wrote one joke every single day and even put a cross in his calendar to write, say, wrote a joke. This is the comedian, not necessarily the guy in Seinfeld, although he is the same guy and they look very similar. But yeah, and so it created this chain
[8:54] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[8:54] Al Elliott: So every single day, so when he looked at his calendar and he got months and months of crosses every single day, he's like, well, I can't not write a joke today. I've got to, even if it's bad. So I think this, this brings up the idea that you are grateful and we all know gratitude is like so, so important. You are grateful for what you've done. You're, you're proud of what you've done, but also almost creates something like, well, Monday I'm gonna have to tell the team what I've done this week, so I'm gonna have to do something, um, or make it up, which probably you don't wanna do
[9:20] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Or I think it's maybe you wanna take that pressure off 'cause it, the problem with kind of these things is, is when you say, right, every Monday or every Friday in our, in our meeting, in our wrap-up meeting, when we talk about something that you've achieved that week, it can start to feel a bit formulaic, a bit pressured, and a bit like you're digging around for something to say. Um, so I agree that more frequency is good. Every week, I'm not sure. It maybe depends on the individual or maybe how busy things are. Certainly every month. What might be nice is if you alternate it. So one week you say one thing that you're proud of achieving this week, And over the next week, you have to nominate somebody else and say, I was really impressed by what Al did this week in terms of doing that. And then that also builds that, that recognition and that respect and civility amongst team members. So I think having an exercise like that, if you mix it up a bit so it doesn't get too formulaic and too repetitive, as you say, can, can do all these things in terms of team building, in terms of imposter syndrome, in terms of recognition, in terms of goal setting. Yeah, it could be really great
[10:18] Al Elliott: Oh my God, I love that. That you, that you go around the room and say something you, that you were impressed by, by someone else doing. That is incredible. We're gonna call that the Gopsall method from now on. That's your move. The Gopsall method. Anyway, right, so talking of names, I was reading The Guardian, as would be my—
[10:36] Leanne Elliott: As you usually do
[10:37] Al Elliott: As I usually do
[10:38] Leanne Elliott: You both do that. I could go, really?
[10:42] Al Elliott: I know. Do you know what's really funny is that, is that politically I probably couldn't be further from The Guardian, but actually Actually, it is really, really good stuff, even though they keep coming around and keep guilting me with little pop-ups going, are you paying? I'm like, no, not yet, not yet. But, um, I might have to pay now. If you're listening, if you're from The Guardian, you're listening, you send me a message and I'll check on your LinkedIn. And if you do work for The Guardian, then I'll pay for it. There you go. There's my, uh, there's my guarantee. So The Guardian, uh, it was an Icelandic lady called Maria. Now we talk about surnames here. I'm gonna spell this really quickly and then Leanne, you can tell me how to say it. Yeah
[11:19] Leanne Elliott: Hjalmtysdottir. Hjalmtysdottir
[11:22] Al Elliott: Nearly. It's Hjalmtysdottir. It's not really, I just made it up. Sorry if you are, Maria, if you're listening