Pick Your Bucket
About ten years ago, near the beginning of my managerial career, Mark shared some life-changing guidance with me. I (Dani) was whining to him about the amount of time I was away from home and my husband. After enduring my complaints for several months, Mark explained the concept of the Two Buckets to me.
We all have two buckets: a work bucket and a home bucket. There will almost always be pain in one of the buckets. It’s up to us to choose which bucket the pain is in. In his subtle way Mark was basically telling me to grow up, stop whining and start taking responsibility for my decisions.
I had a choice to make: keep whining about being away from home or do something about it. Neither choice was without risk. If I stopped going to so many meetings that required me to be away from home, I risked getting in trouble at work. If I didn’t, I risked an unhappy home life. I chose the former.
When faced with difficult decisions, I’ve often thought about the Two Buckets to help me figure things out. I ask myself what is most important to me? What am I willing to get in trouble for? What am I not willing to sacrifice? I’ve learned that answering these questions ahead of time makes the decisions much easier!
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