lol I was
supposed to post about this and have been postponing it for longer than I should have.
(Sorry Sadhana...)
There is this project called
101 Things in 1001 Days, originally created by a guy called Michael Green. The purpose of the project is to list 101 things you want to accomplish in 1001 days. People join in by posting the link to their lists.
When I first saw this project, sometime back in 2005, I thought it was a great idea. As much as I felt inspired to write my own list, I wanted to do more. So I contacted Michael and asked if he minded if I created a version of the project in Portuguese and he agreed. So I set up a blog for this project. In the first few months only a few people joined, I didn't really put much effort into "advertising" it. I posted about it in my personal blog, posted my own list and that was it. Then all of a sudden, lots of people started joining. I started reading other people's lists and noticed they were writing in their blogs about the project and how it was helping them not only accomplish the things they wanted and had been postponing forever, but how the process of writing the list itself raised their awareness about their own lives, making them think about what they really wanted. As this community started growing around the blog, I created a
Flickr group where people could share pictures of their accomplishments. I also started to get several emails from people sharing their stories, telling me how they were feeling inspired and focused on their goals and how much difference this was making in their lives. I know, it's just a list (at first sight), but writing this list forces people to think about their lives.
People don't just post their lists in their blogs, they usually post the progress too. So every time they finish a task or accomplish something, they write a post about it. Which is inspiring in itself - as a community, we're constantly reading about what other people in the project are doing. Reading other people's lists also sometimes makes us think about things we could (or should) be doing and aren't.
After receiving some of these emails with lots of interesting ideas, I started writing articles on the blog (just a few at this point), sharing my tips and experiences and left comments open for discussion. As people slowly started commenting, it began to feel like a more collaborative project.
It's been a wonderful experience so far. You can look at this as a personal development tool, a soul searching process, a to do list... depending on your intentions behind creating your list. I have seen lists that resemble more a to do list. On the flip side, most of the lists show that people are really willing to make an effort to change their lives in a very positive way and these changes are really happening for most of us.
It sounds easy at first to come up with 101 things to do. And it probably is if you treat it as a to do list, period. However, if you think of it in terms of "what do I really want to do with my life in the next 2,5 years or so and what decisions could have a significant impact on my life", then it takes a lot longer and a lot of soul searching. Of course it highly depends on how well you are aligned with your purpose already and how much aware you are in general terms. In my case, my list started much more as a to do list and after a few months, after an incredible shift/raise in awareness, I realized that original list didn't make much sense to me anymore. So I started working on it again to reflect the new "me". However, even before that, I had already accomplished so much compared to my usual patterns, that it blew my mind.
Some people prefer not to post their lists online and take the project privately. Which is fine too. However, most of the feedback I get about this is that posting them publicly, as well as posting the progress in a blog, helps a great deal. Apparently, people feel more committed to reaching clear results and then feel good when they can post about it in their blogs - especially when other participants comment on the post leaving words of encouragement and praise. It works both ways, really: for the person who accomplished something, obviously, but also for people reading about it, who find inspiration and encouragement. I'm not sure if the original project has gained this community aspect, but our project in Portuguese has and now there's a very nice exchange of ideas and experiences going on.
Whether you choose to join the project (either in English or Portuguese, depending on what language you speak) or not, I recommend to everyone reading this to try to write this list as an exercise. It can be a very enlightening process.
And like I said in
this post, I'd love to hear and share experiences about this with people in this forum. Especially since there are lots of people here working with intention manifestation/the Law of Attraction. Treating the list as a list of intentions should be a very interesting experiment!
So, if you make your list, please use this thread to discuss anything related to it.
The original project in English is
here.
The project in Portuguese is
here.
--
ps.: I edit the thread Title to reflect the name of the project and make it easier for people to find it. The original title was "101 Things", I changed it to "101 Things in 1001 Days". Dittert, I hope you don't mind.