Founder's Blog: April Fools Day

Back in 2017 the morning alarm went off and the first thing I saw on my phone jolted me upright with a blast of mischief. It was April 1st.

This was the second April 1st the YesTribe had enjoyed, but for some reason the 2016 had passed without any humour. This time though, no chance.

There’s a trick to an April Fools joke. It has to seem realistic but potentially far fetched. This is both tricky and easy with the YesTribe, a bunch of people who are very used to experiencing the type of stuff that the rest of the world might deem…”crazy.”

A good April Fool’s post should deflect attention from the randomness by offering individual participation. “Name our pet alpacas”, or “tell us what skills you have to build an island paradise.”

Crucially, you just gotta hope that the first comment isn’t ‘April Fools!” because that just spoils it for everyone. If there’s one rule to life, it’s to not call out the April Fools, it’s far cooler realising it and then playing along, stirring the pot.

Once ten or twenty people have commented, then new viewers get caught up with the excitement and you know you’ve won!

A group like the YesTribe is based around open mindedness and optimism. This comes with a double-edged sword. It makes a far fetched April Fools joke much more plausible, but at the same time when hundreds of people are getting excited about our new ‘project’ it’s hard not to feel guilty!

So, without further ado, here are our April Fools post from the past three years.

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2017

Our first April Fools joke, and one that has stuck. Not a week goes by without someone still asking about our Alpacas. Rather cutely, in future years when people have realised the post is an April Fools they’ve answered in Alpaca terms, like… “oh, you could keep the alpacas on your island!”

The key to this one came in a picture I’d taken a few years earlier on a Trike trip across Europe. The SayYesMore flag in the foreground and alpacas in the background - genius!

How excited people were going to get, I had no idea…

And then the penny started to drop…

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2018

With The YesBus up and running, there was no chance in cold hell that we were going to go through the process of creating another monstrous space. The bus was cool but it came with a lot of headaches and politics that didn’t quite fit our simple approach.

Still, the chance to add a (fake) different form of public transport was too much to ignore, especially for that one day of the year when lying is perfectly acceptable.

To be fair, this is a pretty cool train conversion. Maybe one day.

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2019

It was all too tempting to take things to the next level this time round. Wonderfully, as friends suggested later, maybe after everything, this didn’t seem far fetched at all.

The bait was taken early on and this post became one of the most popular in YesTribe history. As the day drew on I spent half the time laughing at how into it everyone was getting, and half feeling incredibly guilty.

It was all getting a bit too exciting, eventually the balloon would have to burst, officially…

So, a big thanks to everyone who offered their help, boats, skills and support for our non existent island. Especially the lecturer at Warwick University who proposed that her students get involved with designing an eco-friendly building as part of their course.

It’s worth noting that the Ecocapsules mentioned do exist. They’re quite pricey at the moment, but they’re very cool and one day, one day, we might just have to make this happen.

Until this time time next year!

DC

Success through Failure

The only way to succeed is through failing

The fear of failure holds many of us back from working towards our dreams. A lot of people get too scared to start anything because we are subliminally thinking about what can go wrong. Jago Hartland explores why the fear of failing is a much bigger deal than it sounds: it is the biggest dream killer. 

As a teenager far from the model student, I feared failing more than most people. The idea of failing and being laughed at held me back from trying harder in my studies and all activities: heck! Don’t get me wrong, I still continued with some of my biggest passions in art and sports but I always held back believing that it was better to be average at something and not try than it was to try hard and fail. Popularity meant more to me than progressing on me. At fifteen years old I was presented with a life changing situation which was always going to leave an impact from then on. It took a bit of time, but after my diagnosis with cystic fibrosis, the weight of failure was lifted from my shoulders and it was simple- the things that should no longer matter to me, didn’t. 

An image of Jago in a hospital bed, holding his thumbs up, wearing an oxygen mask

It wasn’t as if I woke up one morning and wasn’t scared of failure - on the contrary, I have naturally always been alarmed by the idea of failing like all of us. The only difference after my diagnosis was that I realized how precious our time is and that doing what we love and reaching for our goals is one of the most central things in life that we can pursue. In the space of a year, I went from being a student destined for bad exam results and being expended for setting off fire alarms, fighting and getting in trouble, to getting full A’s and B’s and being commended in my efforts all over. What changed? My idea of failure changed.

That year of my life may seem insignificant compared to recent accomplishments however I learnt my most valuable lesson. In that year of exams and cultivating myself, I failed more times than I had in any other year of my life. But wait, how did I fail more if I succeeded and bettered myself? The path to success is through failure. Once I failed an exam, it meant that I’d then revise, learn and succeed at passing the exam, and so on and so on. After realising that failure was fundamental to progression I challenged myself in as many ways as possible. Sure enough, I failed and succeeded and failed and succeeded. 

An image of Jago sitting on a sofa at Yestival 2017 with 2 fellow YesTribers

An image of Jago and a group of friends in a beautiful mountain region (with lakes in the background)

An image of Jago at Yestival 2018 standing in front of the Say Yes More sign in the field of dreams

After realizing that failing is a step forward, the last five years have been hugely rewarding due to hard work and facing challenges. Fronting my own health scares has prepared me to be resilient in the face of failure. After being given the title of one the ‘Independent’s Inspiring Individuals’ in the National Happy List 2018 I was asked repeatedly by people how I managed to avoid failure and succeed. I explained that my most proud accomplishment has been fundraising just under £10,000 towards different projects and charities. This has included over thirty seven different events with numbers of the public ranging from one to ninety.

Some of the most demoralising failures I have encountered came from those events, 6 of those events made me break even with costs and only a few people turned up and another 3 of those events put me at a loss of over £30 per event. It doesn’t sound like a huge financial failure however when you consider the large amount of hours in organising, publicity and administration with charities: it was surely demoralising trying to work towards helping others and going wide of the mark. By this point, most people are shocked that charity events can fail after putting time and money into a just cause. Without those failed events and learning from them for future events and persevering, I wouldn’t have fund-raised my targets and I most likely wouldn’t have continued on to make the Independent Happy List: one of my proudest achievements. Learning from these events is one of the simplest of ways to describe how failing has helped me grow - other than explaining to get up every time you get knocked down.

An image of Jago at the start of the Thames Path, holding a banner saying “Cystic Fibrosis- a fight we must win”

The reason I am writing about my experience of failure is for a more recent motive. In the past five years I have taken on a number of charity and personal challenges that has pushed me further physically and mentally than I could have imagined. My most recent challenge was to run the River Thames of 186 miles in 6 days whilst sleeping homeless.

The 1st of March 2019 rolled around to start the challenge and I was well trained and well rested after a recurring knee injury. The plan was to cover 30-35 miles per day, eat lots and sleep rough until reaching the Greenwich barrier in London. As the first day approached, I covered 34 miles in dry weather and had eaten plenty and found shelter under a boat nearby until starting again in the morning. The second day felt sore on my legs and the drizzle made the path incredibly wet and slippery. I had covered 27 miles before having to stop due to the toll it was taking on my body, and after eating I slept the night in the closest church nearby. It was at 11pm, when I was struggling to sleep because of my legs screaming at me in pain, that I realised this challenge may be more difficult than anything I had planned for. An agonising third morning followed reaching 75 miles in two and half days down the River Thames and limping the previous 6 miles for two hours. Whilst sipping a coffee in a waterside café in Benson I realised that this would be the first event in five years that I won’t complete. 

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Failing the Thames Path- an image of Jago sat on bench with face in his hands

The main thoughts that raced through my mind which I couldn’t shut off from was thinking about cycling to Paris, climbing in the Himalayas, running mountains and marathons and believing that the River Thames was going to be easier in comparison. I would be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tear whilst taking an hour to massage my legs and make the decision to end the challenge. The worse part was that my mind was 100% there but I couldn’t physically cover more miles, later discovering I had done much more damage to my knee's than I initially believed.

Making the contact with my sister to come pick me up and then let the public know that I couldn’t continue the challenge felt like my most colossal failure. My sister Poppy said to me in the car ‘You are the only one who will be feeling this way, even the people who support you won’t care this much and would prefer you to be smart and look after yourself.’ I understood that any supporters would want me to look after myself and be smart but the thing that stood out to me was how much I cared about failing. The same person that started these challenges five years ago would have been angry at the fact I was beating myself up for not finishing. 

Somewhere along the line I forgot why I started. Remembering that you should do something because you love that thing rather than to only focus on the completion is imperative to your pleasure in that area. The Thames was beautiful and the experience was amazing but my set purpose was more interested in completing the challenge – I failed to remember I was doing what I loved. There are many things I could have prepared better including: the planned distance, the weight of my rucksack, the terrain covering and how sleeping homeless will affect my recovery. I failed to take these factors into serious consideration and got carried away with challenging myself. Looking back already, I am proud to say that I have succeeded in learning from my mistakes and succeeded in reminding myself to do it for me as that is most important. The plan is to continue to face my challenges with a new relaxed approach I have re-adopted towards failure, which is succeeding. 

There is no path in life that can keep you away from failing at something. J K Rowling, the famous children’s author once said: ‘“Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.’ I hope we all take away the stigma around failure and that it is in the only way to succeed. 

Jago Hartland

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Image of Jago standing in mountains wearing orange jacket and smiling

March 22nd 2019: SayYesMore Round-Up

Our first round-up of the year, keeping you up to date on general plans for SayYesMore, upcoming events and campaigns, and some stories from the YesTribe.

News from SayYesMore HQ

After an admin-heavy first few weeks of the year our team is making progress towards restructuring SayYesMore’s official structure from Limited Company to Community Interest Company. In reality, the structure won’t much impact how we run - reinvesting any profit into new events and spaces that bring people together - but it feels like a good step to make towards a more transparent organisational structure which we’re refining this year.

After three years of largely successful volunteer led campaigns, the reality is that running SayYesMore day to day comes with too many responsibilities and commitment to expect volunteers to shoulder the work for much longer. This has also led to regular turnover of volunteers over the years, which in turn means more retraining and time asked of the core team.

A one-off grant and ongoing training and advice from the Facebook Community Leadership Programme in 2019 has given us a thrust towards running this year’s events without financial pressure, with the aim of creating a sustainable team structure into the future, run by one or two part-time staff, with much less responsibility on volunteers.

Creating a countryside haven

With our fourth birthday approaching we’re finally feeling like the future is becoming clearer. The growth of SayYesMore has always been organic, built on random, spontaneous ideas that felt like the right thing to do. Whichever way the wind has blown we’ve tended to sail, but now our voluntary and ambassador team has over 80 people, regional and international YesTribes are popping out of the woodwork all over the place, and the online community is growing by around 100 people a week, it’s only natural to consider where this is all going.

What’s for sure, is that (as mentioned above) running SayYesMore isn’t always easy. Simplifying our methods going forwards is a big part of the plan, which will enable the core team to have more fun and not sacrifice their own lives. Of everything we do, the YesBus has become the biggest burden. While it’s a superb outdoors space that offers a really unique slant on learning and recharging in the countryside, the politics, costs and time it takes to keep the YesBus running is becoming unsustainable.

Our dream future involves finding a plot of land for SayYesMore to create a more permanent basecamp (our current running contract with Brinsbury Campus, the current YesBus home, ends in 2020/2021). This would give us a long-term plan to work towards, a basecamp to build and expand, and an opportunity to create a sustainable income from one site that would cover the rest of SayYesMore’s events, campaigns and team building.

Here’s the perfect dream: we find our own land with an existing glamping business (ideally with pods, cabins or huts as opposed to tents) that has enough land for that business to continue, a space for the YesBus to live, and open spaces for campgrounds, firepits, walking routes and an annual Yestival. If you ever see a site for sale that sounds like it fits the bill please do drop us a line! (Where we find the finance for a project like this we do not know, but we’ve managed to do some pretty incredible things on a shoestring so far and like to think that nothing is impossible!).

The YesTribe is a growin’

The main YesTribe Facebook group, where it all began, is approaching 8000 members, and when combining members of all SayYesMore groups and pages, we have a social media audience of well over 15,000. Make sure you join the Tribe!

Wake Up Wild 2019: Treely, treely cool!

Each year we try to harness the power of our growing tribe for good, by holding at least one large-scale event that creates a positive environmental and social impact. Although the Waterbike Collective in 2018 was a resounding success, including hundreds of people across the five month, 1000 mile journey around the UK’s waterways, collecting over 100 tonnes of trash along the way, it was a total bitch to run! Emma Fairey and Dave Cornthwaite were on call 24/7 for five months, ensuring the waterbike kept on moving despite mechanical failures, riders dropping out last minute and other spontaneous challenges.

So this year we’re going back to our roots with an event that we’re calling Wake Up Wild. For one night only, on September 28th, we’ll be hosting multiple group campouts for YesTribers all over the UK.

We’re aiming for an early April launch, with two thousand and nineteen places available for the event. The cost to each camper will be £5, with £1.50 going to SayYesMore to cover expenses, insurance and general admin of the event, and the remaining £3.50 donated to Tree Aid, a tree planting organisation with whom we’re working to create voluntary and educational opportunities, and a UK-based woodland space open for use by the YesTribe.

Get involved

We've started to confirm a number of camping locations, and if you know of some land that we could host a camp on, or would like to become a YesTribe Campout Leader for Wake Up Wild and other campouts throughout the year, drop a quick line to Emma at events@sayyesmore.com.

We’re also really lucky to have been supported by the Facebook marketing and creative departments, who are working with Creative Review to champion an up and coming artist who will help to create a unique advertising campaign for Wake Up Wild. The campaign will be based around the benefits of time in nature to our wellbeing. Earlier this week Dave Cornthwaite spent time with the team at Facebook, developing concepts for the campaign which will launch in a few weeks. Watch this space for more!

DC (right) with Phil, James, Sammy and Liv at Facebook HQ in London, after a planning session for the Wake Up Wild campaign. Sammy spent the whole session drawing on the walls!

Camp Yestival: Going, Going, Gone! (With a Caveat)

In 2015 it took a touch over 6 weeks to sell 125 tickets for the first ever Yestival, so when the clock struck 10am on February 17th we held our breaths. "Ping!" sung the first confirmation email as it dropped into the inbox. Then, "Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!..."

It took less than two hours for Camp Yestival to sell out this year, and for the first time we can now focus on making the event as good as can be, rather than pushing tickets right up to the final day. Woo hoo!

If your fingers weren't on fire that morning, don't worry. A couple of tickets have been refunded and no doubt a handful more will be looking for a new home, so in May we'll gather them all together for a second sale. We'll keep you posted.

If you’ve visited past Yestivals you may notice that Camp Yestival will be smaller this year, 1/3 the size of the last three years, to be precise. It takes a huge amount of effort to bring together Yestival for our team, who all have real lives and jobs outside of their contribution to SayYesMore. So we decided to have somewhat of a rest this year, and the hope is that with Camp Yestival nestled mostly within the familiar YesBus field - a place where we run events multiple times a month - we’ll be able to create a wonderful event without putting our lives on hold for a few weeks. We can’t wait for this one.

The YesWood: a space for safe wild camping and forest bathing

Part of our long-term plan at SayYesMore is to work with private and corporate partners to buy up little plots of woodland all over the UK as little mental health havens and safe wild camping spots. Thanks to the generosity of a Yestival-goer who wanted to do some good, an offer on the first ever YesWoodland has been accepted and by the end of Spring we'll have our very own 6 3/4 acres (that's about 3 and a half football pitches) of conifer forest west of London. 

If anyone else is interested in helping us to buy some more forest, we'd love to hear from you.

Fill that Joypot

Looking after our mental health and a direct connection between exposure to nature and wellbeing has been a regular feature throughout the life of the YesTribe, so a few members of the YesTribe have put our minds together to create a “mental health department” for SayYesMore.

The idea is simple. When we’re low, our stresspot fills up. And in order to combat that, we need to empty the stresspot and fill our joypot.

We’ve started building a page full of handy content, links, contacts and events to offer a helping hand to anyone feeling low, or worse. We plan to launch this in early April, along with the first Joypots Cafe, a low-level regular gathering for people to come together over a steaming mug of tea of coffee to chat safely about how we’re doing, and how we can look after ourselves better. Watch this space.

Ambassadors & Team Summits

In February we enjoyed two weekends with the wider team who keep SayYesMore ticking.

On the first weekend of the month we gathered at the YesBus to train up 25 of our 40 volunteers around the UK. In the next few weeks two of the SayYesMore team will head around the country to meet up with those Tribe Leaders who couldn’t make the Team Summit. The camaraderie has gone on to help break our events record for Jan-Mar, with numbers of get-togethers up by over 50% on 2018.

And for the first time, SayYesMore now enjoys a team of ambassadors, from Paralympians to weekend warriors, microadventurers to Everest Summiteers, we’re so proud to be represented by folks who live by the SayYesMore ethos, they’re out there blazing a trail with their mission-based work, all of which inspires and encourages others to get outside and live courageously.

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Events

The YesBus has been open for two weekends in March, with over 50 people visiting for Tribe Days and workshops teaching filmmaking and camping skills. Earlier this week we opened up for two days of plastic pollution workshops, attended by over 100 students and staff from Brinsbury Campus, who own the land that the YesBus rents. Part of our ‘rent’ is to commit 100 man hours towards hosting or helping events for the campus, so we started nibbling into our annual quota with the workshops this week.

This month saw the first ever YesStories in the Netherlands, thanks to Emmelie Van Dongen, who met some of the SYM team during a surfing trip last year and ended up delivering a wonderful improv session at Yestival in October.

The YesTribe East Midlands camp out

Kim Brenan, leader of the YesTribe East Midlands, has rallied her regional tribe and last night they enjoyed their second campout of the year.

YesTribe London have had a break from YesStories in February and March but Andy Bartlett is back in April, and the 17th April is in the diary for the next one.

A YesTribe London social in a Covent Garden pub on Wednesday evening saw around 20 YesTribers pop in for a chat and a beer. Often the seeds of adventures are planted at gatherings like this but rarely do they happen immediately. Following a gentle dare SayYesMore Ambassador Jen George headed straight to Heathrow and ended up in Iceland the next morning! See the stories below for more on this!

Stories from the YesTribe

It pays to dream

SayYesMore Ambassador Darren Edwards was paralysed during a climbing accident a few years ago. His story has inspired so many since then, and just this week his recovery took a few steps forward. We dare you not to cry a little watching this!

A Signature Run

SayYesMore Ambassador Michelle Ellison is nearing the end of a cross Britain run. Along with her friend Johnny, Michelle has run 300 miles in two weeks and has amassed almost 4000 signatures along the way for the Suicide Guarantee.

Did you know that there is no current policy to deal with suicidal patients who walk into hospitals looking for help? Michelle is raising awareness of a petition calling for the UK Government to implement a standardised suicide support procedure in A&Es across the country. Every km Michelle runs represents approximately 10 lives lost to suicide in the UK in 2017 (5821 lives).

Please sign this petition and share it with your networks, and check out this map to see Michelle and Johnny's progress and how the signature count is going. Best of luck to both of them, almost there!

To the pub, and then far far away

SayYesMore Ambassador Jen George came along to a YesTribe social in a London pub last night, and then asked a question that at the very least changed her week. "What adventures could I do tonight? I've got about three hours."
"You could be in Barcelona in three hours."
And with that Jen hugged everyone goodbye and set off. She was too late getting to the airport, but we woke up to a message saying she was about to jump on the first morning flight to....wait for it...Iceland.

Here’s the Facebook page for Jen, who this year has committed to taken on 365 new adventures. Nothing like a little spontaneity!

Opportunity knocks: A Pacific Mission

Now and then we get sent some brilliant job or volunteer opportunities, you can find them here.

The latest was from the team behind Ben Locomte's Pacific Ocean swim, looking for volunteer crew for a three month sailing voyage in support of Ben as he front crawls across the world's biggest ocean. Expect marine life, plastic pollution research and a good tan!

Lost Sleeping Bag Found, Tribe style

When Chris Lee left his sleeping bag on a train it ended up at the other end of the country. Luckily, the YesTribe came to the rescue and Chris was reunited with his lucky bag a few days later! Now that’s what social media is for!

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Handy Links

• The YesTribe is our main online community home

• Our website tells you everything you need to know about SayYesMore

• Here are all the events our various Tribes and Groups have in the calendar

• We've regional and overseas Tribes all around the world, see if there's one close to you

• The Ripple Effect is a place to share ideas and events for those who actively care about the environment

• The YesBus is our countryside basecamp in West Sussex, it's very cool

• Wake Up Wild is our nationwide campout on September 2018 - signs-ups open next week

• The YesList is a group for self development and creative living ideas

And if you’d ever like to get in touch, get involved or ask questions, drop us an email via the Contact Page. Thanks for your support!

3 simple ways to make your digital content more accessible

The world is becoming a much more accessible place for people with disabilities; most public buildings have a ramp for access and flights of stairs often have high contrast edging to make them more visible, but when it comes to the internet there’s still a lot of work to do. Here are a few quick and easy things you can do to help make your content more accessible to everybody. It’s easy to do and might help you to get some engagement from people who wouldn’t usually interact with your content.

1. Describe your photos

A quick description of a photo added to a social media post can be a big help to those with a visual impairment. Screen readers (the software that allows blind or visually impaired people to use phones or computers by reading out text) are getting smarter and they might sometimes be able to guess what’s going on in a photo, but the best way to be sure is by adding a little description yourself. If you’ve taken an awesome picture of yourself up a mountain a screen reader could describe it from anything from ‘photo’ to ‘photo of a mountain’ or even ‘photo of a mountain with a person’ and as cool as that is, it still lacks detail. A quick line from you saying ‘a photo of me standing at the summit of Snowdon’ would make a real difference to the story being told.

An example of adding a descriptive comment to an image…

If you have a blog or website, you might be able to add some ‘alt text’ to an image which won’t be visible on the blog or image itself but will be picked up by screen readers (this is what it’s for). If you’re not too worried about descriptions being visible, adding them as a caption will also work perfectly.

Most website editors will allow an ‘alt’ or descriptive field to add captions to images

2. Be mindful of using images with text in them

We know this is a big thing on the internet and social media with memes and quotes, but screen readers really struggle to read out text if it’s in an image. A quick write up of what the image says in the post or comments could really help. If you are organising an event and want to post an image with some details, that’s totally cool, but try to make sure the details are somewhere else in the post too!

If you are not sure if your text will be picked up, an easy test is to think about whether the text could be copied and pasted. If it can, a screen reader will probably read it out. If it can’t then there is a good chance it won’t.

3. Subtitle your videos

This is a good idea anyway as lots of people prefer to watch videos muted, but people who are deaf or hard of hearing will really appreciate it and it’s straightforward to do. Facebook and YouTube have options for adding captions built into them and they’ll even auto-generate or sync themselves. This will take a little bit more effort than the other tips here, but the benefits are far reaching.

Now you know a few ways to make your content more accessible, you can get started right away. It might seem strange to add a description of a photo saying exactly what most people will see to begin with, but most people won’t notice them or you could use them to add a bit more to the story.

If you want a little more inspiration, the Guide Dogs facebook page is a great example of things being done well.

You can also look at our blog to see how we’ve done things. We’re not tech experts but we do what we can and try to keep the workflow simple. If you have any questions at all you'd also be more than welcome to get in touch with us.

The YesList

The best thing any of us can do is pass our knowledge on and try to leave the world a better place than we found it in.

I’ve always appreciated the idea of a bucket list, except for one thing: it’s motivated by death! So I tend to gather long-held goals and new-found dreams as a life list, or a YesList, a collection of targets, experiences and lessons that band together as a motivation to not sit still, rather than hustling a last-minute dash towards making something of our limited time left.

This is a chance to get rid of that stumbling attitude we hear all around: “I wish I could do that,” “I’ll never have that chance.” Or the gorgeously passive aggressive “you’re so lucky!” 

All of these are really sad sentiments, and none apply in reality.

We make our own luck, we have the chance in time to do whatever we want, and we’re all, right now, in a position to never have to say those words “I wish” ever again. 

YesLists aren’t just about doing things and going places, they’re at the heart of who we want to be. We inspire through our actions and while our stories make us more interesting, it’s important to remember that unless you decide to make your YesList absolutely central to your identity, the list itself isn’t a story. Instead, it’s a great way to fill those moments of uncertainty or boredom and keep you focussed on learning and growing.

Creating a list is a commitment to action, developing positive habits and making life memorable. Not sure what to do with your time? When you have a list it’s easy, just scour through all these things you’ve always wanted to do and start working towards the one that excites you most.

How to create a YesList?

This bit is fun. Open your mind and be free with your dream chasing, this is a chance to set yourself targets that you didn’t even think were possible before. There are no limits here, just ideas. Be novel! Imagine who you want to be in five years time and the things that by then you’ll be able to talk about. Then get writing!

Later on we’re going to look at some ways that other people can help you do the things you’re not yet sure how to do yourself, but in the meantime it’s important to remember that this is YOUR list, nobody else’s. 

It’s not a race or a competition and there’s absolutely no timeline. The only commitment you make when creating a YesList is that at all times you’re moving, however slowly, towards ticking off another item. There are some days when we feel totally unmotivated and can’t be bothered with anything - but I promise you, a few moments with this list will get you thinking.

Start by getting yourself a piece of paper, or open up a word document or spreadsheet if you’re a digital type, and write 1, 2, 3 and so on down the left side of the page. Personally, I have my YesList on the Notes app of my phone, which syncs with my other devices - so if I ever want to check out my list or make a change or addition, I can do it anywhere.

A good YesList has at least 50 challenges in there. Frankly, the more the better so feel free to aim higher, say, 100. Within the list there should be different categories:

• Travel: Geographically, where would you like to go? Is there someone you’d like to visit on the other side of the world?

• Physical: This might be aiming for a PB, or taking up a new sport, or planning an endurance adventure. And bingo, you get and stay fit at the same time as ticking off another win.

• Kindness: Whether it’s volunteering in your local neighbourhood, raising money for charity or giving a friend a hand with their latest house move, let your list push you towards making a difference.

• Psychological: Got a fear that you’d like to overcome? Heights, public speaking, holding a spider? Here’s your chance to be less scared of life in general.

• Habit: Commit to reading a certain amount of books in a year, learning a new skill each month or spending a certain number of nights wild camping. Developing just one habit improves your discipline in other areas of life.

• Creative: There’s something special about making something. How’s your photography or film making? Maybe you want to learn how to draw or build furniture? Or even a tiny house?!

• Health: Finally, maybe this is your time to give up sugar in coffee, or cut down on your meat intake? Or maybe you just need to commit to half an hour of exercise each day, hit those 10,000 steps, or down-size your meal portions.

• Financial: Why not set yourself a savings target? Even £1 a day will give you enough for a weekend getaway by the end of the year.

• Time: There will be some things you’d like to achieve which you simply can’t do this month or even this year. This is ok, but maybe ensure that you have enough short-term items open your list to keep focus.

You can choose as many or as few items within each category as you like but only choose items that you can qualify (ie. swim regularly is a hard one to tick off, because regularly is pretty ambiguous). Also make sure you have control over achieving your goals (ie. don’t leave things completely in the hands of fate or luck), with a little hard graft and imagination you’ll be amazed at how much easier life seems with a can-do attitude. 

And here’s a tip. If you’re making a list of 100 items, maybe keep five spaces free. No doubt you’ll find something to fill them with soon.

To get started, here are some questions you could ask yourself to inspire and aid your own list-building:

• Are there any special moments you want to witness, or people you’d like to spend time with? 

• Are you a mountain, desert, ocean or city person? 

• Which countries, places or locations do you really want to visit? 

• Is there an event you’ve always thought would be very cool to be a part of? 

• What have you always wanted to do but until now been too scared of? 

• What are the most important things you can do with your talents? 

• What achievements would you like to pop under your belt? 

• If you had one year left, how would you spend your time? 

• What would you regret not doing? 

• What have you always wanted to learn? (Remember, the Internet makes learning pretty damn easy). 

• Is there a type of food you’ve never tasted? 

• How can you best give your skills and time to someone else? 

• What can you do only with someone else? Think of the perfect person, and what you might like to do alongside them. 

• What would you do if you had unlimited time, money and resources?

Ok, so those are the basics. Here are questions people often ask about creating a YesList:

Can I add small things or do they all have to be life-changing?

A healthy mixture of big and small is always a good idea. Some items you’ll be able to complete in a day, some might take five years. Without doubt, many long-term personal challenges will be quite selfish - and while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this it’s important to equal up our list - so make sure it’s a good split between personal development and philanthropy, easy-to-complete tasks and steady, long-term plodding towards a far-off goal.

Break it down

If you have a huge challenge on your list, like learning to fly a plane, cycle around the world or become a millionaire? Create a sub section under that item and give yourself smaller challenges that all add up to helping you complete the overall goal.

How do I choose which item to tick off next?

Think about the weeks ahead, are you going anywhere in particular? What’s the weather going to be like? How are you feeling? If you’re fighting fit (or want to be) maybe it’s time to take on a physical challenge... 

Maybe there two or three items that you can group together and tick off on your next holiday - let’s say you’ve got “Master cooking a foreign meal” and “learn how to freedive” on your list - why not go somewhere where food is yummy and free diving courses are available, like Thailand or Bali?

What if I want to change my YesList?

This is your list and your rules. If an item you wrote down a while ago doesn’t appeal anymore, get rid of it. There’s no point in you being unhappy! That said, there was a reason you put that thing in there in the first place, so try to recall what that was before you get the eraser out.

Even if you managed to start your list with a nice round 50 or 100 items, if you come up with another awesome challenge then feel free to add it to your list, you’re being freed and not limited with this project.

Remember, you don’t have to complete your YesList in order.

Should I share my YesList?

This is completely up to you, but there are a few benefits to telling other people about your list. Saying something out loud is scientifically proven to enforce an idea and therefore you’re more likely to carry it out. 

The more people you tell, the more likely you are to find friends to help you.

And finally, it’s great to have a buddy or two to be accountable to. This could be your partner, a friend or even a stranger with a winning smile. Tune in with each other every week or month and share your wins, struggles and unexpected outcomes. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Inspiration from other lists

My YesList

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Simple version, using Notes on Phone

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With extra columns for deadline, cost and country - using Google Sheets

Why would I do a YesList?

It’ll make you more interesting, focussed and motivated. It’ll help you make decisions, become more patient, and experience the life you want to be living. You’ll have something to talk about next time you have friends over to dinner, and you might just inspire the people around you to do more, too.

You are the sum of all your experiences, so why not choose to be the sum of all the cool and hard things you’ve always been interested in? One bonus is that planning and working towards a goal will add more to your character than you know, and that’s all before you get to tick an item off. 

You choose who you are and who you’re going to be, and a YesList is just one of the ways to help you be that awesome person.

Ok we’re nearly there. Finally, a couple of tips from me:

Write everything down

Write an ongoing journal or diary tracing your progress. If it’s been a long day this is the last thing you’ll feel like doing but in time you’ll be so thankful you captured your memories. The small details can so easily be forgotten, like how you felt or struggled on a particular day, or a specially worded line of advice someone gave to you - these nuggets might just add value to a blog one day, or maybe even a book.

An important reminder

This is a practice in enjoyment, achievement and developing positive habits. It’s not supposed to be a blueprint for your entire life. Take the pressure off and don’t worry if it takes a while to tick off an experience you thought you’d have enjoyed sooner. This is your project, your list, your life. Use the YesList as a guiding stick and nothing more, and in turn it’ll look after you in ways you could never have imagined.

Now, it’s time to get started

Choose three items from your list that you’re going to tackle first, and then let me know about them on Twitter and of course, share them on the YesList Facebook group, too!

Tweet me your first three YesList Items

Ok, off you go and be incredible. Don’t forget to share your list with me and join the YesList group on Facebook so the community there can support and help you along.