{"id":827,"date":"2013-05-30T16:11:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T16:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/filling-up-buckets\/"},"modified":"2014-07-17T03:25:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T03:25:42","slug":"filling-up-buckets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/filling-up-buckets\/","title":{"rendered":"Filling Up Buckets"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week for my D.Min assignment I was tasked with reading the book How Full Is You Bucket? <\/em>By Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton.\u00a0 Roam and Clifton\u2019s thesis is simple: people are happier and more productive at work and in life when they are reinforced by positive feedback and settings.\u00a0 Of course, this is a fairly obvious statement, especially for people working in Christian ministry.\u00a0 Rath and Clifton employ the metaphor of a bucket that signifies our emotions and well-being each day.\u00a0 For people to function well they need to have their bucket filled.\u00a0 During daily interactions others come along and can either add to the bucket (filling it more with a positive interaction) or steal water through negativity.\u00a0 Moreover, Rath and Clifton delineate specific ways to reinforce positivity intentionally.\u00a0 Often in Christian leadership we forget to do the intentional things that really do fill up people\u2019s buckets so that they know they are loved, appreciated, and valuable, and be motivated properly to continue their important service.\u00a0 Here the authors list 5 strategies that can help fill buckets, and help us become more positive people.\u00a0 They are: prevent bucket dipping, shine a light on what is right, make best friends, give unexpectedly, and reverse the golden rule.<\/p>\n

Over the last week I attempted to purposefully put these strategies into practice both in a work setting and also in my family setting.\u00a0 From this time of implementation I would like to make two observations.\u00a0 Firstly, with close relationships and in particular with children, it can be way too easy to bucket dip, and much more difficult to fill buckets.\u00a0 Specifically with family and children, it is really difficult to stay positive amongst the normal tensions of sibling fights, selfishness, and disobedience.\u00a0 As a parent it can be all too easy to slip into a negative interaction when attempting to discipline and correct.\u00a0 I am left attempting to seek a solution for this tension, in how to discipline in a way that has a more positive, bucket filling character.\u00a0 Obviously there is a time for discipline, and this is important, but how do we maintain full buckets through it all.\u00a0 Moreover, the issue of discipline and correction reminds me that sometimes we will have to deal with co-workers (potential bucket dippers themselves) where we need to step in and speak truth in conflict, or even discipline difficult people.<\/p>\n

Secondly, I noticed that positive interactions are contagious, and not only help to fill up the buckets of others, but also myself.\u00a0 This last week, I went out of my way to personally thank and also develop my friendship with certain co-workers (past and present) and volunteers in our ministry.\u00a0 These interactions, whether facilitated by text message, email, or personal appointment, were all greeted by reciprocally kind words and thanks, helping to fill the buckets of all involved.\u00a0 In other words, bucket filling is good for all involved, and can even be an essential part of creating a working community where bucket filling is the norm, freeing people up for productivity and success.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week for my D.Min assignment I was tasked with reading the book How Full Is You Bucket? By Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton.\u00a0 Roam and Clifton\u2019s thesis is simple: people are happier and more productive at work and in life when they are reinforced by positive feedback and settings.\u00a0 Of course, this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,324],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-rath","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}