AN undergraduate in psychology at the time, Clonlara’s Shane O’Brien once wrote out a bucket list; more than 20 things he wanted to do in his life.
He was more thoughtful than most young men, and had some understanding of the value of long term goals.
Some of those he identified were reflective of his age – go partying in Vegas was there – but many of them were positive goals such as playing and winning an All Ireland with Clare, which he did at under 21 level.
A lot of them involved travel and one was conquering a deep-seated fear of water, which was linked to the death by drowning of a childhood friend.
By the time Shane was 30, he had done everything on his list and he has now turned the experiences into a book entitled from Bucket List to Best Self, which is going to be on sale on Amazon in the coming days.
“I suppose it’s just an accumulation of my life experience. When I was about 19 I had the idea for a bucket list. In college, studying psychology, a lot of it was about death and finality and all of that, there’s a quote ‘begin with the end in mind’, what do you want to have achieved by the end of your life? I think I was about 21 when I wrote them down, the intentionality came in, because when they were written down they were real. I remember the lads in the GAA were doing that at the time, saying to have your goals for the year written on the wall, what you wanted to do. Then I started writing a bucket list of what I wanted to do, some of it at that time I was nowhere near being able to do. I started off with something small. I think I had a goal of seeing 100 of the top 500 places in the world, because I had a book about those places. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it, but in four or five years that was done,” he says.
He felt he learned a lot from travel, as much of it happened in his late teens and early twenties, when he was finding his feet as an adult. “As I travelled I learned from my experiences, different things that helped me develop. That insecurity, always depending on other people. I went to Denmark, the first time ever, wasn’t prepared, was so used to being taken care of. I was 19, had never been out of the country by myself, and I nearly ended up on a train to Sweden, by mistake. But I grew from that, a few months later I went to Canada on Erasmus for six months. I was challenging my fears.”
At the time he wrote the list the fear of water was very severe, and he knew what the reason was. “I had a best friend that when he was 10 himself and his father drowned, he fell into a quarry and his father jumped in after him. It was only three years ago that I had the confidence to go back and tackle doing swimming lessons, I had about 30 swimming lessons. That to me is one of my biggest ones. The list helped me with that.”
While there were some very dangerous activities on his bucket list, water was what was most frightening to him. “I couldn’t put my head under water without panicking. Jumping off the pier in Kilkee was probably a bigger thing for me than skydiving or running with the bulls in Pamplona.”
He went back and did very basic swimming lessons, and began to make progress. “It was just a long time desensitising. One of the best things I did was go back to the very beginning at swimming lessons. I thought I’d be one of the oldest, but there were loads in their sixties, just learning how to swim again, standing up, putting the head under the water and learning the technique. That helped me to desensitise. I knew that I needed to desensitise myself to the water and keep coming and keep coming. It took a while and there were times when I was trying to swim lengths and I’d panic, but it was just the consistency that got me through it. There was that drive and the acknowledgement that there is a problem, and it shouldn’t be a problem. Now there definitely has to be a respect for water, but to realise that I shouldn’t be panicking when I can stand up in the pool.”
A talented hurler, one of the items on his list was to give boxing a try, and he was successful at it once he started. “I played hurling from a young age, captained the Clare minors in 2013 and played three years under 21. But for me, I just never fitted… I just didn’t think my skills and qualities were maximised in hurling-my consistency and my dedication, my grit and toughness- and I always wanted to box. I saw that the college (UL) had a boxing team, that there were intervarsities and I joined and actually won the inter varsities at junior novice, I think there were five fights. I won the Munsters the day after, it was a tough weekend. I did my Masters in UCC and won the senior novices. I got to the All Ireland men’s novice final and lost on a 3-2 split, it still haunts me! I was still eligible for the novices the year afterwards, but surprisingly I won the Munster Senior a few months later. I also won the Haringey Box Cup over in London.”
Now he has hung up the gloves, but has established Cloncastle boxing club, which operates between Clonlara and Castleconnell, expanding the sport beyond its usual heartlands. “I wanted to bring it back to country lads, and give anyone who wants an opportunity to box.”
He has achieved a lot in various different fields, educated to postgraduate level, winning multiple titles in two sports travelling much of the world and achieving a certain level of financial freedom as a young man.
Shane feels much of it comes from an ability to set goals and work diligently towards them, rather than any great innate abilities. “I like goals. I would always say I’ve nothing natural really. I’m alright athletically, average enough intelligence, but I’m very intentional and consistent. If I say I’m doing something I’ll do it every day. When I wanted to do a marathon, I just trained. Every day. I thought about it for two months, about how much it was going to take, added on about 20-30% because it’s always harder than what you think it is, then the price was paid in my mind and I just did it.”
He believes that once people work towards one goal successfully, they will see the value of consistency and commitment. “Once you have a goal achieved that you didn’t think you were going to achieve, you can see that you don’t need to see the end of the staircase to keep taking steps. You just know the process will get you there.”
The book has a lot of different dimensions to it, reflecting his own experiences and learnings. “Weirdly there is a lot in it. There’s the travelling side, the psychology, the philosophy, even financial things, obviously you can’t do all these things unless you have some savings.”
He feels it could be a valuable reading experience from people from all backgrounds. “A bucket list isn’t just for someone at the end of their life, it’s for someone who wants to live their life with intentionality, anyone who wants to live their best life, who wants to achieve things. If someone wants to start their bucket list I think it’s for them, anyone who really wants change. I don’t think age is important, it’s just that I did it at a young age.”
He is looking at working in performance psychology in the future and he feels he can help people improve themselves, with his book hopefully assisting its readers. “My purpose in doing it would be to help people live a life that’s authentic to themselves. Whatever it is, maybe to conquer a fear of heights, maybe they want to do the Camino but have put it off for years. I’d love to help people be the best that they can be. I spent nearly ten years working with kids and families who often don’t really want the help, so I think there’s something nice about working with someone who comes to you and says this is what I really want to do and I just need help with it.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.