From Catalytic Connections:
How Full is Your Bucket?
Legend has it that Superman is “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.” Yet exposure to a little green rock robs him of his super powers and will eventually kill him. So what does Superman do to overcome this critical shortcoming? Does he create an improvement campaign to transform his critical weakness into a strength? No. He avoids it. He does everything he can not to handle it himself. Just like you should do with your own energy drains.
Marcus Buckingham, in his seminal work The One Thing You Need to Know: … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success
, summarizes decades of research to describe the secret to sustained individual success. The key, he says, is to “discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.” Please notice, he didn’t say to avoid what you’re bad at. Rather, find and eliminate what depletes you.
Tom Rath and Donald Clifton, in their book How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life, talk about activities that drain you of energy. They call these actions “bucket dipping” and contrast those with “bucket filling.” One of the key points of the book is that activities that drain one person’s bucket might actually fill another’s. In other words, one person’s sapper may be another person’s sustenance.
via Conquering Kryptonite « Catalytic Connections.
