Everyone’s seen “Up“, and everyone who’s seen up will tell you the adventure book is one of the key symbols of the movie. Although I can’t tell you how to attach enough balloons to your house to fly to the South America, here’s how to make your very own adventure journal to start completing your own adventures.
Take a blank notebook and at the top of each different page write something that you would like to do. This is not the same as a Bucket List. You have to be willing to take active steps on the goals.
The adventures can also range hugely in size and importance, for example ranging from big bucket list-type activities such as “Go skydiving” to smaller items such as “try a new food” or “go to that bookstore downtown I’ve passed a couple times”. After all, not every adventure Carl and Ellie had was “Go to Paradise Falls”. Daily life is the focus here, not the distraction. The ultimate goal of the adventure book is to stop passively thinking about the things you would like to do (the way a bucket list implies) and to start taking action on them.
Some examples of goals I wrote in my adventure journal included:
- Go to brunch
- Do karaoke
- Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras
- Take an aerial silks class
- Do some sort of fun run
- Go hiking
- Go skydiving
- Get a motorcycle license
- Go skeet shooting
Then the best part – start making progress on your adventures!
Each time you go after one of the goals, take pictures of the event. Then you can write the date completed on the top of the page next to the goal and add photos, a summary, whatever you want. As you continue thinking of goals, you can keep adding to the pages of your notebook. When you fill it up, you can look back at a scrapbook of your very own.
Final thoughts:
What kind of goals would you add to an adventure notebook? Can you see yourself making one? How much did you love “Up”? How much did you cry at the beginning?