How Full is Your Bucket?

If you are one of the two or three non-Park School students who read this blog, you may have noticed that I've made several recent references to a "bucket". This bucket, in case you were wondering, is a metaphor coined by a psychologist named Donald O. Clifton.


Each of us has a bucket. In it, we carry our sense of well being. When it is full, we feel great, but when it is empty, we feel terrible. The fullness of one's bucket is determined, in large part, by one's interactions with other people. Every interaction we have with another person helps fill or empty their bucket.

Every time we do something the least bit positive to another person, like saying "hello" to them or holding the door for them, we are filling their bucket. When we ignore a greeting or shut the door in someone's face, we are emptying, or dipping into, their bucket.

What's interesting about this is that every time you fill (or dip into) someone's bucket you are doing the same to your own. Filling buckets makes you feel good, while bucket dipping makes you feel down.

I introduced the bucket idea to the 5th graders at Park at the beginning of the school year. They understood it right away. I asked them to practice filling buckets and told them that an easy way to start would be to greet people, by name, with a smile.

The results have been amazing. Once the kids discovered how good filling others' buckets made them feel, bucket filling took on a life of its own. One can now hear a chorus of "hi's" and "thank yous" and the saying of names around here every day. Many kids go out of their way to try to fill the buckets of people who are down and sometimes, people who are known to be unfriendly.

Filling buckets sometimes pays unexpected dividends.

One thing I do is greet cashiers and checkers at the various stores at which I shop. I mean, think about it. Cashiers have kind of a thankless job. They have to deal with hundreds of strangers each day. Many of them are in a hurry, preoccupied or view the cashier as a non-person.

I make a point to be pleasant to them. I don't engage them in conversation, but I do say hello, ask them how they are, make eye contact, smile and say "thank you".

Simple, right?

The result is that many of the cashiers who work at the stores where I shop regularly will hold their line open for me, or open their line when they see me. They then greet me with a smile and ask how my day has been.

Try it yourself. Start small. Say "hi" and "thank you". Smile. Use people's names. Make eye contact. I think you'll find that filling buckets like this will make you feel pretty good and that your days will be more enjoyable.

Soon, you may find yourself looking for other ways to fill the buckets of others' and therefore, your own.