Use These 3 Buckets to Create Habits that Stick
Use These 3 Buckets to Create Habits that Stick
Part 1 of the Habits Series
I compartmentalize my life into three main areas.
Strength - physical and mental.
Work - my overall work purpose and mission in life.
Rest - taking time to recharge.
Ideally, I try and tackle each of these daily.
Recently, our Coffee with Champions workshop was about habits and posed the following question to our groups:
What are the habits you’ve created that have led to success?
I love this question, and there were a lot of great answers from our members. Here’s mine.
Let’s return to my 3 main areas of life: strength, work, and rest.
I see them as 3 separate buckets of time.
Each “bucket” contains limited “time resources” to accomplish something.
I just need to figure out what I want each bucket to accomplish. What is the bucket’s purpose? What am I choosing it to be?
For example, I want:
My Strength Time Bucket is to make me physically and mentally strong for as long as I live.
My Work Time Bucket is to help fulfill my life’s purpose and provide lifelong, adequate income for my family.
My Rest Time Bucket is to recharge me so I can fully enjoy the ride along the way.
Notice…I’m more focused on a LIFESTYLE than specific goals.
I’ve created an “identity” for each bucket. I know what I want each one to accomplish. Each bucket has a vision…or a lifestyle attached to it.
Now, I just have to manage the “time resources” that I have been allotted to achieve the end results I want.
Here are my two rules:
Desired results require productive habits.
Productive habits require intentional creation.
The secret to successful habits begins with my IDENTITY. Who do I want to be? What is the lifestyle that I want to live?
Do I want to be physically weak and struggling as I get older? Or do I want to be healthy?
Do I want to be stuck in my ways…or do I want to continually be learning new things?
Do I want to have a lot of regrets when I reach the end of life…or do I want to feel like I fulfilled my purpose?
Do I want to miss out on the joy of life…. or do I want to make time to “stop and smell the roses” each day?
Once I’ve answered these questions, my three “time buckets” have a mission.
This is step number one in creating good habits.
I see each day as having three “time buckets” of strength, work, and rest.
I create a vision, or identity, for each of those three buckets. I decide who they are going to be and accomplish.
Till next time, be a force for good.
- Lance