The Reverse Bucket List
Write down your worldly cravings, then cross them out to detach from them
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 92%
Brooks replaces the ordinary bucket list of things to acquire with a reverse bucket list of things to release. On a recurring date, typically his birthday, he writes down his strongest worldly cravings, ambitions and status metrics, the ones he privately knows are trivial yet still treats as markers of his specialness. Then he crosses each one out. The point is not to renounce the goals or refuse to pursue them; it is to relocate the management of those cravings from the limbic system, where they run him, to the prefrontal cortex, where he governs them. Writing negates the attachment, not the desire. It operationalises the Buddhist idea that suffering comes from sticky craving for inadequate things, while allowing intention without attachment.
Origin
Arthur Brooks created the reverse bucket list as a personal practice, describing how each birthday he lists his cravings, including political opinions, and crosses them out to detach without renouncing.
Core principles
- 01Attachment to inadequate cravings is the source of suffering.
- 02The goal is non-attachment, not the abandonment of desire.
- 03Naming a craving moves its management into the prefrontal cortex.
- 04Crossing it out negates the attachment, not the desire itself.
- 05Even trivial status metrics masquerade as markers of specialness.
How to run it
- 1
Pick a recurring anchor date
Choose a date you'll repeat annually, such as your birthday, so the practice becomes a ritual rather than a one-off.
- 2
List your worldly cravings honestly
Write down your strongest ambitions and status metrics: follower counts, book sales, prestige, even strongly held opinions.
Pro tip Include the cravings you're privately embarrassed by; honesty is the point.
- 3
Acknowledge the desire
As you write each item, admit that you genuinely have this desire. You are not pretending to be above it.
Watch out Denying the desire keeps it in the limbic system where it controls you.
- 4
Cross it out
Physically strike through each item, saying you have the desire but will not be attached to it. The act negates the attachment, not the goal.
Pro tip The physical act makes you remember the attachment in the moment of behaviour later.
- 5
Reap the in-the-moment recall
Later, when the craving fires in real life, the exercise surfaces the attachment into your executive brain so you can manage the behaviour.
In the wild
Approaching his sixtieth birthday, Brooks admitted an attachment that was weighing him down: he holds too many political opinions, and they were making friendship harder than it should be. So he planned to write down his ten strongest political opinions and cross them out, not to stop believing them, but to stop being attached to being right. He cites the monk Thich Nhat Hanh's observation that our greatest attachments are to our opinions. The humility, he says, would set him free.
→ A concrete way to defuse the ego-attachment to being right that costs people friends and peace.
Common mistakes
Confusing detachment with renunciation
The exercise is not about vowing never to pursue the goal; it's intention without attachment, so treating it as self-denial misses the mechanism entirely.
Pretending the desire is already gone
Skipping the honest acknowledgement step leaves the craving buried in the limbic system, where it keeps steering behaviour unmanaged.
Is it for you?
Best for
High achievers who intellectually know their status metrics are trivial but still feel enslaved to them.
Not ideal for
People who need to build ambition and drive rather than loosen an over-tight attachment to it.
From the transcript
“I have a reverse bucket list now where I take my worldly cravings and desires and Ambitions... I will write them down on my birthday…”
“when I cross it out I say I have the desire but I will not be attached to this goal”
From the episode
How To Stop Feeling Lost & Find Your True Purpose - Arthur Brooks - #802
Arthur Brooks