Reverse Bucket Listing: A Great Place to Start - Or Go Back To

by Dr. Jeffrey R. DeSarbo, D.O. – The Bucket List Doctor™

There’s a moment I’ve seen many times in my office. Someone sits across from me, maybe late thirties, maybe seventy. Their shoulders dip slightly as they say, “I’ve never really done anything.” It’s not said with self-pity so much as quiet resignation; the belief that life has somehow been ordinary, unremarkable.

When I hear that, I often smile and say, “Then let’s start with what you already have.” That’s when I introduce something I call reverse bucket listing.

Looking Back to See Forward

The traditional bucket list looks ahead toward adventure, novelty, and the yet-to-be. But reverse bucket listing turns the compass around. It asks you to name the things you’ve already done that carried meaning, pride, or courage, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. It’s the opposite of chasing. It’s remembering.

You sit with a notebook and begin to write, not goals, but recollections. The time you comforted your friend after her loss. The night you watched the aurora from your back porch, wrapped in a blanket, realizing how alive you were. The day you said no to something that no longer served you.

At first, people hesitate. They say, “But that doesn’t count.” Oh, but it does.

A bucket list isn’t about spectacle; it’s about significance. It’s about novelty to the soul, not just novelty to the passport. The beauty of starting with a reverse list is that it instantly shifts your psychological position from one of deficiency to one of abundance. You begin to notice that you’ve already been participating in the very act of living intentionally, just without the formal recognition of it.

How Reflection Changes the Brain

Reverse bucket listing is far more than an exercise in nostalgia. It’s an act of neuro-rebalancing. When you recall positive experiences, your brain’s ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) light up; areas deeply involved in autobiographical memory, identity, and meaning-making. You’re literally rebuilding the bridge between who you were and who you are.

The hippocampus, keeper of our memories, doesn’t just retrieve moments; it re-experiences them. When it does, the brain releases neurochemicals, such as acetylcholine, which sharpens attention and cognitive clarity. This neurotransmitter is what allows you to vividly re-inhabit a moment, feeling the air, recalling the scent, and the color of the light. It’s why gratitude journaling, reminiscing, and reflection often leave people mentally sharper afterward.

Meanwhile, the amygdala, that small emotional amplifier, quiets down. The stress hormone cortisol begins to decrease. You feel the body subtly unwind as your brain reinterprets the past not as a landscape of missed chances, but as a landscape of meaningful presence.

This biological downshift in cortisol has a profound effect: it restores access to the prefrontal cortex, the rational and planning part of your brain. In states of chronic stress, the prefrontal cortex goes offline—leaving us reactive, forgetful, and detached from long-term vision. Reflection reopens that gate. It’s no coincidence that after making a reverse bucket list, many people suddenly feel inspired to plan new adventures or reach out to an old friend. The brain has shifted from a state of threat to one of trust.

Serotonin, Oxytocin, and the Warmth of Memory

We often discuss dopamine when talking about motivation and goals. But reverse bucket listing operates in a different emotional register; it’s serotonin-rich. Serotonin brings perspective, balance, and the quiet feeling that life, even in its imperfections, is enough.

Then comes oxytocin, the molecule of connection. When we relive experiences that involved care, love, or shared joy, the brain releases oxytocin. It doesn’t matter if those people are no longer in your life; the emotional memory reactivates the chemistry of belonging. This is why remembering an old friendship or a family dinner can bring the same warmth as being there; it’s not imagination, it’s neurobiology.

Reverse Bucket Listing and BDNF: The Growth Factor Within

What’s most fascinating is how this reflective process can awaken Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a protein essential for neuroplasticity. When we engage in mindful reflection and gratitude, studies show increases in BDNF expression, especially when emotions of meaning and safety accompany the recall.

Think of BDNF as the fertilizer for your neurons. It encourages the growth of new dendritic connections and strengthens existing ones. When you write your reverse bucket list, you’re not only reminiscing, you’re literally rewiring your brain to see yourself as capable, adaptive, and worthy of continued growth. You’re turning experience into biological optimism.

In contrast, chronic regret or rumination suppresses BDNF and keeps the brain in survival circuitry. Reflection, when practiced through gratitude and narrative coherence, reawakens the brain’s capacity for expansion.

The Acetylcholine Effect: Precision of the Mind

Another layer often overlooked in these exercises is the role of acetylcholine: a neurotransmitter linked to focused attention and learning. When you sit down to recall life’s meaningful moments, your brain’s cholinergic system activates, heightening clarity and sensory detail. This is why a vague memory can suddenly bloom into vivid imagery once you start writing.

Reverse bucket listing engages acetylcholine much like meditation or slow reading; it calls your attention inward, anchors thought, and deepens the emotional color of memory. Over time, this practice enhances mental agility and concentration, offering a restorative counterpart to our overstimulated, fragmented attention spans.

From Cortisol to Calm: Reclaiming Inner Safety

If you’ve ever noticed how anxious thoughts quiet after reflecting on good memories, that’s cortisol unwinding its grip. When you frame your life through what has gone right, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis recalibrates, signaling to the body that you are not under immediate threat. Blood pressure lowers, heart rate steadies, and parasympathetic tone rises.

In neurological terms, the brain is re-coding safety. It’s remembering that not every unknown future needs a fight-or-flight response. You begin to feel an internal exhale: a biological invitation to imagine again.

A Story of Rediscovery

I once worked with a woman in her early fifties who came in convinced she had “wasted” her life. She had raised two children, worked two jobs, and rarely traveled. Much of her life was interrupted by anorexia nervosa, which riddled her with a need to always feel in control and avoid change and novelty. When I asked her to make a reverse bucket list, she looked puzzled. “What would I even put?”

A week later, she returned with tears in her eyes. Her list included: teaching her son to read, caring for her father through cancer, rebuilding her kitchen by hand, raising compassionate children, completing her education, learning how to bake amazing desserts, and learning to forgive her sister. When she finished reading it aloud, she said softly, “I guess I’ve lived more than I thought.” We continued to talk more when she reflected on these reverse-bucket listing items, and then she added, "I know there’s even more.”

That’s the shift: when the mind stops measuring a life by what it lacks and starts celebrating the moments that mattered. It’s not just psychological, it’s neurochemical relief.

What This Does for the Future

After completing a reverse bucket list, something subtle but extraordinary occurs: the brain begins to orient itself differently in time. Memory becomes less about what’s past and more about what’s possible.

The prefrontal cortex, now calm and connected, starts building models of the future that feel realistic, reachable, and exciting.

That’s the bridge from reflection to anticipation, from serotonin to dopamine, from stillness to motion. You begin to write a forward bucket list not out of longing, but out of trust. Reverse bucket listing reminds you: you’ve already been brave, curious, alive. The evidence is there, in black and white. Your brain, ever adaptive, notices. If I’ve done this much, perhaps I can do more, it suggests.

So if you’re stuck in the beginning, or before you rush toward the horizon, take a moment to look back. You might find that the trail behind you is already lined with moments of awe. Add them to your list from the start. Remembering important times, proud accomplishments, major and minor milestones, unique experiences, and thankful moments is the most neurological form of gratitude there is, and they deserve to be recorded on your list.