Living in the Bucket
The
System
Before I start into the
details of this system, I want to make a disclaimer. After forty plus years of books, conferences,
and classes, I can no longer remember where or when I got the ideas that are
contained in the structure. Let’s just
give a giant nod to all of my teachers and mentors as I attempt to combine all
these thoughts into a workable program.
Thanks for helping me grow.
Roles, Resources, and Responsibility
Life is difficult to
manage! My experience has taught me to
organize and execute. Living in the Bucket is my attempt to
suggest an easy system for you to do the same thing. After introducing the four major components,
I intend to give examples of how to put the concept into practice. It is my hope to create a community that will
exchange and expand the system by suggesting additions to the ideas presented.
Roles
The first part of this system
is to identify your Roles. Think of them
as categories of your identity. In my
case I found it to be helpful to group these Roles by what I call Realms
(Personal, Private, and Professional).
Under each Realm, there are
some specific Roles that can be identified.
Ideally, the resources that you allocate would be equal in each Realm (more
on that later).
Try this exercise for
yourself and see what you come up with.
Eventually, we will use this chart to set Goals though Activities, but
first things first.
Resources
It’s easy to think of your
Resources only in one dimension; money.
But what about other ones such as Time,
Health, Relationships, or Vigor (more on that later as well). Effective use of these resources increases
the probability that you will have a successful outcome on the pursuit of your
Goals.
Responsibility
Steven Covey noted
author, refers to Victor Frankel’s concept
that true freedom comes from the ability to respond to outside
stimuli. He states that we are responsable, or able to respond to situations
as we choose. It is a basic theme of Living
in the Bucket, that you
choose what activities and resources you will engage in on a conscious
level. In other words, be purposeful
about how and what you do.
My Roles
If you think about your life
as a movie, you are asked in every scene to play a “role”. How do you go about this with no script to guide
you? Let’s consider a process that
breaks down your roles into Realms. As I stated my Realms are Private, Professional and Personal.
Look at the chart below, it
shows how I have done it for myself.
 |
| BOB'S REALMS |
An Example
When I sold
my planning practice, my Profesional Realm contracted, freeing up resources to
expand my Activites in the other
Realms. One Role that I wanted to expand
on was “Father”. After some thought, I
came up with the Actvity of Dad,
Daughters, and Dinner. Once a month,
one of my two daughters picks a resturant and we go (my treat) to have a leisure meal. The only rule is that we treat each other as
equals and try to relate on a individual basis, as friends. This has produced some suprising insights
into our relationships.
 |
| Dad, Daughters, & Dinner - July 2016 |
In my next post, I will
discuss how to identify your Goals and link them to your Roles.
Until then, I wish you
fulfillment.
Bob
