Kelsey Merritt | Getting Clarity on Your Dreams In this episode, Mitch Matthews interviews Kelsey Merritt. When they first met in 2016, Kelsey impressed Mitch with her list of 300+ things she wanted to do, see or experience in her lifetime. Since then, she’s gone to check many things off her list… including setting a World Record. They talk about the importance of clarifying your goals and dreams as well as dig into practical strategies for achieving them… even when time and budgets are tight. Listen To The Podcast:   In 2016, Mitch and his Dream Team met Kelsey Merritt when they brought the BIG Dream Gathering to campus.  She stood out because she brought her Bucket List of 300+ things she wanted to do, see or experience in her lifetime. Since that time, she’s stayed with it and checked a number of items off the list.   In fact, Mitch and the crew brought the BDG back to Kent State and helped to make another of Kelsey’s goals (involving honey bees) a reality. Check it out it out below: In this episode, Mitch and Kelsey talk about how to get clear on your goals and dreams.   Then they dig into practical strategies for making them happen! Comment below and let us know what you connected with from Kelsey’s story and strategies.   We’d love to hear from you! Also… here’s a summary of the interview with a few more details too! Enjoy.   Summary Kent State University student Kelsey Merritt met Mitch and the BIG Dream Gathering Team in 2016 and impressed them with her bucket list of about 300 items she wanted to do, see or experience in her lifetime. She’d already checked many items off the list, but she keeps adding items to it. However, this is not a list of mere achievements, it’s a list of experiences. Her focus is to be in the moment and enjoy the process. And she’s not afraid to dream big — one goal she recently went after was to break a world record.   Time-Stamped Show Notes [03:12] Introduction and background of Kelsey Merritt. [06:57] The list. [09:39] Why the list is important. [13:35] Genuine curiosity. [17:34] Education outside of the classroom. [20:22] Failures. [26:20] Don’t be afraid of emotion. [28:03] World record attempt. [31:28] Why attempt to break a world record now? [33:45] Challenges in breaking the world record. [40:25] Wisdom of the week.   Kelsey Merritt, Getting Clarity on Your Dreams The List Kelsey Merritt’s list journey started when she was a junior in high school and her English teacher assigned her class the task of creating a bucket list of 25 items, then completing and documenting two of them. Merritt completed her two items and stashed her list away in her room, only to find it the next year. “I pulled it out around the end of senior year when I was cleaning out my room, getting ready for college,” Merritt says. She decided to complete her list. “From there, it exploded into the beast that it is today,” she says. Although ever-evolving, at the time of this interview, the list has 348 items, 184 of which have been completed. It’s Important “It’s important because it’s helped me live my best life,” says Merritt. “I don’t want to go through the motions of life. I want to experience this world as much as possible.” People are concerned that she won’t finish her list before she dies, but that’s not the point. “I’m not preparing myself to die,” she says. “It’s taking what this world has to offer and just doing it.” People who assume it’s a death preparation are thinking about it backwards. Experience is what gets people talking, because when you start to talk about something you’re passionate about, you light up and your heart starts to sing, and it’s opened up doors for her at career fairs and networking events because of that excitement. “It’s made me who I am today,” Merritt says. “It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone. It’s taught me a lot about life, living,