I got this idea for an Impossible List from Thomas Frank, who got the idea from Joel Runyon (…so I guess I’m plagiarizing both of them?) Joel defines an Impossible List as a list of:

All the things I ever thought I couldn’t do because it was “impossible.” The sort of things that I assumed the cool guys on TV only ever got to do. The things I never thought that I would be able to do.

I wrote my Impossible List last year but I think sharing it with the internet, like Thomas and Joel have done, will make it more satisfying to complete!

I’ve already done a lot of things I previously thought were impossible so I’ve included these achievements for completeness. It’s also quite interesting to see how my mindset has changed over the last few years: things I previously thought impossible I now see as trivially easy – and therein lies the beauty of self-development.

My Impossible List:

Intellectual:

• Get 11 A*s at GCSE – August 2011
• Win the Harvard Prize for highest AS Level results – August 2011
• Get 4 A*s at A Level – August 2012
• Get into LSE for Economics – February 2013
• Get into Cambridge for Economics – January 2013
• Win the Rishi Madlani Award for the highest mark in Macroeconomics – this was something I really set my mind to and made it happen, very proud of it, June 2015
• Win the Economics Examiner Prize for the highest mark at LSE – June 2015
• Win the Premchand Prize for the highest mark in Monetary Economics
• Become a university teacher – September 2017
  • Get the highest student survey results – March 2018
• Become a lecturer
• Get a distinction in MPhil Finance & Economics at Cambridge
• Complete a Harvard MBA
• Study MSc Biology at Oxford
• Study MSc Neuroscience at UCL
• Study MSc Applied Mathematics at Imperial
• Study at Princeton
• Study at Yale
• Study at MIT
• Complete a DPhil in Neuroscience at Stanford
• Study at Peking University, Beijing
• Earn a 2000+ Elo score (master level)
• Publish a research paper
• Author a book
• Reach fluency in Spanish
  • Reach native fluency in Spanish
  • Pass the C2 Spanish DELE exam
• Reach fluency in French
• Reach conversational fluency in Mandarin
• Reach conversational fluency in Portuguese
• Reach conversational fluency in Italian
• Reach conversational fluency in Japanese
• Reach conversational fluency in German
• Learn basic Russian
• Learn basic Greek
• Learn to read Sanskrit
• Learn to fly a plane
• Learn machine learning
• Hit grade 8 in piano
• Solve a Rubik’s cube in <60 seconds – January 2014
  • Solve in <30 seconds – February 2014
  • Solve in <10 seconds

Physical:

• Get a six pack – you can see how I did it here, October 2017
• Do a pushup – seriously, couldn’t do one till I was 18, October 2013
  • Do 50 consecutive pushups – October 2017
  • Do 100 consecutive pushups
  • Do a planche pushup
• Do a chin-up – they’re so hard! April 2017
  • Do 10 consecutive chin-ups – September 2017
  • Do 20 consecutive chin-ups
• Bench press 60kg – August 2017
  • Bench press 100kg
• Hex-bar deadlift 2.5x bodyweight
• Squat 100kg
• Do a muscle-up
• Perform a slam dunk
• Black belt BJJ
• Run 5K – April 2017
• Win one amateur boxing match
• Fight for the Cambridge Varsity Boxing Team (against Oxford)
• Learn to breakdance
• Learn to salsa dance
• Perform a slam dunk
• Learn to surf
• Learn to windsurf
• Learn to kitesurf – February 2019

Business:

• Get featured in Forbes – January 2018
• Speak in front of a live 100+ crowd – April 2012
• Speak in front of a live 1000+ crowd
• Appear on BBC News for an interview
• Work in Silicon Valley
• Start own summer school
• Start own school
• Start own university

Adventure:

• Go parasailing – December 2017
• Go jet-skiing – December 2017
• Ride an elephant
• Seven wonders of the world:
  • Great Pyramid
  • Hanging Gardens
  • Statue of Zeus
  • Temple of Artemis and Ephesus
  • Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
  • Colossus of Rhodes
  • Lighthouse of Alexandria
• Try i-o-waska
• Try shrooms
• Paragliding – January 2019
• Dive with whales
• Dive with sharks – February 2019
• Go rafting
• American road trip (man vs. food style)
• Try shrooms
• 10 day meditation retreat
• Ride a camel – August 2018
• Hike a mountain
• Teach in Africa
• Horseback riding
• Go caving
• Walk down the Great Wall of China
• Helicopter ride over New York City
• Drive a Lamborghini through the Hollywood Hills
• Fly to the moon
• Visit a volcano
• Hike Mt Fuji
• Hike Mt Kilamanjaro
• Sail down the Amazon river
• Go to space
• Go canyoning
• Stay at the El Rio hostel
• Go tubing
• Scale a cliff face
• Go rock climbing
• Kayak between South East Asian islands
• Eat at every Michelin star restaurant in the world
• Go scuba diving – January 2019
  • Taganga, Colombia – January 2019
  • Coiba Island – February 2019
  • Tulum, Mexico
  • Great Barrier Reef, Australia
•  Train Muay Thai in Thailand for one month
• Train as a boxer in the Philippines for one month
• Visit my long-lost Welsh relatives (Mitson is apparently Welsh in origin)
• Visit my Dad’s birthplace, Orissa
• Burning man
• Travel S. America with a Spanish/Latina girlfriend
• Make sushi in Japan
• Learn origami in Japan
• Learn to cook French cuisine (well!)
• Swim in a waterfall
• Go NYE island-hopping in the Caribbean
• Bungee jump
• Hang glide
• Skydive

Miscellaneous:

• Get high – June 2016
• Go to a strip club
• Produce a beat
• Build a house
• Draw/paint a self-portrait
• Draw/paint a family portrait
• Restore a classic car
• Break an existing Guinness world record
• Set original Guinness world record
• Build own computer
• Start a family
• Don’t get divorced!
• Publish one comic book
• Make own chess board
• Build own house
• Bribe a police officer
• Own a tailored suit
• Build furniture for own house
• Save one person from committing suicide
• Perform as a stand-up comic and finish my set
• Direct a short movie
• Complete F-Zero – 2007
• Complete Mario 64
• Complete original Crash Bandicoot saga
• Complete original Spyro saga
• Beat Trap Adventure 2
  • Beat Trap Adventure 2 on one-life mode
• Start a blog – August 2016
• Start a vlog/Youtube channel
• Learn photography
• Become a lifelike portrait artist
• Own a fully tailored wardrobe
• Own a Mercedes SLS AMG
• Realise there’s no end, there’s just this

That’s it…for now 🙂 But I’ll keep this updated as I complete list items, and think of new items to add.