In the 2007 box-office hit, “The Bucket List,” two men – one a corporate big shot, the other a blue-collar mechanic – are given terminal medical diagnoses, forge an unlikely alliance, and storm the world to enjoy a kaleidoscopic blast of adventure, exoticism, silliness, and simplicity. After fractured lives of sadness, regret, and missed opportunities, they at long last discover their joie de vivre before they “kick the bucket.” In other words, to paraphrase the film’s tagline, these men – played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, respectively – got busy living instead of being busy dying.

This month, as New Year’s celebrations and resolutions are etched in ether around the world, several notable life coaches, motivational speakers, and laypeople alike are singing a powerful chorus of carpe diem, encouraging peers and colleagues alike to release fears, remove obstacles, draft their bucket lists – enumerated registers of longstanding dreams, fantasies, goals, whims, or fancies – and, indeed, to get busy living. It’s a powerful way to ensure that history is kind to you, as Winston Churchill said, because you are its composer.

Twenty-four years ago, after laboring for decades as a professional yacht captain, contractor, photographer, lifeguard and raising three children as a single parent, former Los Angeles resident Sean Holland retired at 44, sold his home, bought a small boat, and sailed the seven seas. “Definitely a ‘bucket list’ decision,” he says from his beach casa in Baja, California. “It was a long-term goal of mine and it seemed appropriate to make the decision in my mid-40s rather than my 70s.”

Holland, now 74, took note of too many peers and friends who had dedicated their prime years to financial security, only to discover severely compromised health or suddenly pass in their retirement. He was determined to seize the day while he “still had the wherewithal to make the dreams come true,” says Holland, who still sails every day. “No regrets and lots of great adventures.”

In 2013, Caroline Adams Miller will visit the Mediterranean, retracing the steps of Odysseus’ mythological journey of the Greek isles, a dream her father carried with him to his grave at the age of 69. “He’d talked about doing that his entire life, but he never did it,” she says. “And when my siblings and I learned that he passed away, that unfulfilled dream was the first thing every single one of us commented on. I knew I would live my life differently. I was not going to have my own children wonder why I hadn’t done the things that would bring me joy while I was alive and able to do them.”

Indeed, Miller recently spent five-years with one of her daughters earning a black belt in Hapkido, which inestimably boosted her confidence and self-esteem. What’s more, Miller has become one of the nation’s most prominent performance coaches and motivational speakers, marrying hard science, positive psychology, and spirituality in bestselling books like “Creating Your Best Life.” About a decade ago, Miller began using “the bucket list approach” with her clients, offering them “a good vehicle to think about what they are doing with their lives, and what types of risks they may not be taking out of sheer fear,” she says. “I work hard, and with total pleasure, to help people claim their lives.”

Political and non-profit fundraising consultant Charley Dobbs, 63, says she was “an adventurer from birth, never afraid of taking chances,” but that her bucket list became a more urgent affair when a close friend was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and passed away three months later. “I realized that I had a finite number of years left and so I made a list of places I really wanted to visit,” she says. “I started with A – Australia, Alaska, Africa.”

For Dobbs, who has played Bridge once a month since she was a child and began working full-time in her parents’ hobby shop when she was 9-years old, a bucket list isn’t merely a matter of intention, but organization – a commitment in ink. As “Chicken Soup for the Soul” co-creator Mark Victor Hansen says, “By recording your dreams on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be.”

“Creating Your Best Life’s” Miller firmly agrees that goals unwritten are only wishes; putting pen to paper is a critical step in elevating your life. “When things are ping-ponging around in your head, you can forget details or let it slip from importance,” she says, recommending the Web site www.your100things.com as a valuable resource for burgeoning bucket listers. “Plus, when people actually see your list, it adds accountability and reality to something that may have seemed like a pipe dream before. It’s almost a contract you make with the world.”

Melissa Borghorst, a Washington-based motivational speaker and life coach, created “Dream List Photo Journals” (available at www.dreamlistmedia.com) for just this purpose. Hardcover books, luxuriously designed with empty pages for those goals large and small, prompts for creating action plans, organizing dream contacts and resources, and scrapbook-style pages for documenting missions accomplished, Borghorst’s books – when completed by users – “tend to inspire future dreaming, as well as friends and family,” she says.

Borghorst, who recently became a new mother, says her list includes dog-sledding, meeting Oprah Winfrey, learning how to yodel, running with the bulls in Pamplona, and publishing a children’s book. However, her first bucket list item was more modest – a hot air balloon ride. Though she could not afford to buy her own ride, she called local ballooning companies until she found one willing to trade work for leisure. “You can accomplish your dreams, even if you think you don’t have the money,” she insists, noting that financial insecurity, especially in today’s challenging economic climate, is an “excuse” she often hears from clients.

“Start small, with something you know you can accomplish easily and soon,” she says. “Mile by mile, it’s a trial. Yard by yard, it’s hard. But inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

These are lessons she’s shared for years with at-risk students in Washington schools where she volunteers, continuing to self-actualize by tackling her own bucket list. Though painfully shy as a child, Borghorst recently earned a key role in a local production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a lifelong dream she once thought impossible. “Clearly, anything is possible,” she says, frequently reminding her clients that who they become on their journey is often more important than what they actually accomplish. “It feels so good to be in the driver’s seat, instead of being just a passenger on the road of life.”

Some people struggle, however, with clarifying their vision and committing items to a bucket list, stranded for inspiration. The recently published “500 Things to Do Before You Kick the Bucket” (West Side Publishing) is here to help. The book’s author, 52-year old Donald Vaughan, says everybody’s list begins with a simple question: “What have I always wanted to do?” In brainstorming the book’s list – which ranges from learning a magic trick to visiting India to volunteering in a soup kitchen – Vaughan merely let his imagination run free. “Don’t waste a minute about the things you can’t do; put all of your energy into what you can do. And let fear have nothing do with it. With imagination, your bucket list is limitless.”

Life coach Miller reiterates that goals need not be “razzle-dazzle,” but humble stops along the way, like “learning to read or visiting an ancestor’s grave, or being home for dinner with the children at least three nights a week. It’s a roadmap,” she says. “Your list may look nothing like anyone else’s, but if it will make your life worthwhile and engaging, then it’s the right list for you.”

Self-described “programmer and adventurer” Scot Hacker, webmaster at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, was curious what other peoples’ bucket lists looked like and, six months ago, created an online social network, www.bucketlist.org, where users can itemize their own goals, be inspired by others, connect and converse, and share multimedia of their bucket listing journeys. Hacker says many people are embracing the “small and simple” approach to bucket lists, which is perfect – and perfectly achievable. “Not everything has to be a white-knuckled adventure,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with saying you’re going to milk a cow, poop in the woods, or learn to play the ukulele, and then going off to do those things. Not everyone’s going to climb Machu Pichu, but everyone can learn to make bread or take a bigger stand politically. It’s about commitment and follow-through, and those are good things to practice.”

Demonstrating an almost perfect balance of convention and progress, Marjorie Marantz, a 50-year veteran of Los Angeles Unified School District, deeply enjoys the career she’s spent a lifetime working and the house she bought more than four decades ago. “I made decisions early on that seemed to be ‘the right fit,’” she says. Seeing “The Bucket List” in theaters encouraged her to “experience more”, even as she continues to embrace “the comfort and satisfaction of familiarity.” Resultantly, she says she is more engaged in life after 50 than in the decades previous. With a bucket list that includes world travel, taking classes, going to the theater, working with a personal trainer, and studying dance, Marantz says, “I don’t want to just get through my life; I want to really live it.” Indeed, she is considering selling her home and relocating somewhere seaside with wide open spaces, she says – something she’s long dreamed of doing. It’s on her bucket list, after all, so anything is possible.

The key to a successful bucket list, according to Hacker, is that it “reminds us that life is not just a series of unfinished tasks or obligations and responsibilities, a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Bucket lists are a way of keeping yourself honest, so your vision of life and your actual life stay in sync. That’s so very, very important.”

Todd Aaron Jensen is an award-winning journalist, editor, and the author of “ON GRATITUDE,” a collection of thanks-oriented interviews with 50 celebrities from Deepak Chopra and Alicia Keys to Jeff Bridges and Sheryl Crow. To order his book, click on: www.thegratitudelist.org.