Have you made a life list yet?

Do you want to know the biggest objection I hear to a gap year?

Here it is. I heard it yesterday…”A Gap Year is disconcerting to us out of fear of losing focus.”

To which I say, it’s quite the opposite. A gap year ignites passion & purpose. It inspires and lends clarity. 

ALLLLL the research points to this. You can read more about it here and here. 

A 17 yr. old boy texted me the other day. (You can’t imagine how unusual that is!) He wants to take a gap year and says that there is no way his parents will ever let him. He’s a great student and will be able to go to any college he chooses. He wants a break. A short one, just one semester. He wants to experience new things and see a new part of the world before going to college. He’s willing to pay for it himself. He asked me to reach out to his dad and I did. I told him that it was unusual for his son to have found me, reached out, and asked for help. We talked about a gap semester. He said no way, no how. He said he’d outgrow this idea and that his parents knew best. . 

Have you heard of Jim Goddard? 

At the age of 15 (in 1939), he overheard his father talking with some friends. They were lamenting that they had done very few of the things in life that they actually wanted to do. 

Jim wanted no part of this.

He “sat down at his kitchen table in Los Angeles and wrote three words at the top of a yellow pad, "My Life List." Under that heading, he wrote down 127 goals. He completed 109 of those goals. These were not simple or easy goals. They included climbing the world's major mountains, exploring from source to mouth the longest rivers of the world, piloting the world's fastest aircraft, running a mile in five minutes, and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica."

Do you want to see the list of 15 yr. old Jim Goddard? You should. He didn’t outgrow it. It shaped his life. It’s here.

I’m not proposing milking poisonous snakes or retracing the travels of Alexander the Great. I'm just proposing a gap year. 

Life is big, folks. There are so many right ways to go about living it. Let me help you chart a path. As always, please reach out with questions and join us below on Instagram to stay connected! If you know someone who would like this, please share! 

And P.S. It's never too late to make a life list!