Bucket Theory: How to Stop Sabotaging Your Results

What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to be sitting down and recording today because there are so many things going on in my life lately, and I almost wish that this was another bonus episode end of the month where we give you all the updates because there's just so many things happening that I have to update you on. So I just got back from my trip to New York City, which was so much freaking fun. Like, I really needed that in my life. It was honestly the best thing that's happened to me in a while. I had so much fun. I was with my assistant Lori, who was here all the way from Australia. We saw the whole city from top to bottom. We did absolutely everything that we could. We went out, we got wasted, we danced on the dance floor, we met some incredible people. It was just all around a really really good time. So I'll have to tell you guys more about the trip when we do our next bonus episode at the end of the month, like re— recapping the month of July, which is going to feel like it's forever ago by the time I record that. But another exciting announcement is that sometime— if you're listening to this in real time— sometime this coming weekend, there's going to be an email going out to the waitlist for the 2022 retreat in the Dominican Republic. So if you have put your name on the waitlist, sometime this coming weekend you will be getting an email letting you know that spots are now open and you are able to book. So the waitlist is going to get first dibs. They are going to be the first people to know that spots are available to book, so they're going to have the first chance at choosing their room, reserving a spot, and also using their exclusive discount code that they received. So if you still have not gotten on the waitlist and you want to do that and you're listening to this in real time, you do have some time. But that being said, that's another huge exciting announcement that the retreat is happening in December of 2022 in the Dominican Republic. It's going to be the most amazing, incredible 5-day immersive experience where we really work on harnessing our manifestation powers and adopting a new level of magnetism and doing the deeper healing work that needs to happen so that we can attract and be available for our dream lives. So if you love the podcast, if you love learning about this stuff, either virtually or via courses or my podcast or whatever, but you would love, love, love to do it in person and actually get to experience a whole new depth of what this work is like when it's done in person in a beautiful luxury location on a Caribbean beach, then the Dream Life Immersion Retreat is for you. So you'll want to get your name on the waitlist or stay tuned and pay attention to my social media so that you know when spots are able to book and when they're open for the public. We do have 150 people at this point on the waitlist and only 12 retreat spots. So it is possible that they could sell out before we even release it to the public. I hope that that doesn't happen, but I don't really know, so we will see. Anyway, those are kind of my little announcements. Today's episode is called Bucket Theory, and this is something that I just channeled. It just came to me in a client session, and I think it's going to be really useful for people to apply to all areas of their life, and it's really just about how to prioritize in a way that facilitates bigger, more effective growth. So I think you guys are gonna like this episode. I'm just gonna freestyle chat about what the bucket theory is and some examples and how to apply it to your life. So without further ado, let's jump into the episode. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen. Why does it feel like I'm doing all of the things and not getting results? If you've ever felt like this, like I'm showing up, I'm doing this, that, and the other thing, I'm focusing on A, B, C, D, E, all these different areas of my life— my health, fitness, wellness, mindset, you know, personal growth, building a business, or like elevating my career, all of the things, right? You're like trying to learn everything and do everything and integrate everything, and then you're just kind of sitting there feeling like, but when I look around, my life really looks quite similar to how it was before I started doing all of this work, right? Maybe I'm more aware now of the problems that I have or my own subconscious programming or where my mindset goes wrong or the things that I don't really like in my life or that are not really aligned. Maybe I'm more aware of the issues, problems, challenges, obstacles, sure, but I don't feel like any of it is moving or shifting in that significant of a way, right? I feel like I'm still in the same position in my job or not enjoying my career path or stuck in this city or still in the same loop of dating or not finding my partner or in these cycles or patterns that keep repeating themselves. Like, I'm still here, right? So if you've ever experienced this, a feeling like you're doing all the things but not progressing or not seeing the results at the capacity that you would like, then the bucket theory is for you because it's all about how to prioritize in a way that's going to facilitate bigger results. Which is what most of us are desiring, right? We just want everything fast. We, and we want it now. We're like, I want all of the rewards and everything for the work that I'm doing to fall into my lap tomorrow. And I just wanna be successful already. I wanna be rich already. I wanna be living my best life. I wanna have the perfect career. I wanna love what I do. I wanna have the best partner. I wanna have the biggest house. I wanna have a luxury car. I wanna do all the things and I want it now, right? There's no patience ever. That's one of our biggest struggles is the patience of the growth process. But what I will say is sometimes, of course, like, yeah, you're not— this, this bucket theory is not going to solve that problem and just make everything fall into your lap tomorrow. Of course not. There's still patience involved in the journey to getting where we want to go, of course. But sometimes we're doing ourselves a disservice by approaching all of the things that we think we need to do in the wrong way. And I'm going to explain what I mean by this in a second when I talk about what the bucket theory actually is. So what is the bucket theory? Great question. I know you've been wondering this since the start of the episode. You're like, Sam, get to the freaking point. So this is the bucket theory, okay? Every area of your life or your business So if you're an entrepreneur, a business owner, you can look at it through a business lens. You can also look at it through a life lens or both. Okay. Imagine that every area of your life, every category of your life or your business is a bucket, right? And the water that you're going to pour into the bucket symbolizes your growth in that area. So the more water there is in a bucket, the more growth, the more progression, the more results, right? So none of us want empty buckets. We want all full buckets and we want them all today. But the water that you can pour in is not unlimited. Okay? It is a limited resource. So you only get one cup per day of water. To distribute out into your various buckets. So the water that you can distribute out each day, your 1 cup of water per day, represents your time, your energy, your effort, and your resources, right? It's just like the saying, we can't pour from an empty cup. Okay? So imagine you've got your cup of water every day. You wake up in the morning and your 1 cup is refilled. It's all the way filled to the brim full of water, and you start moving through your day and you are pouring out that water into the various categories, areas, buckets of your life and of your business. Now, if you are taking that one cup of water and you are just streamline pouring it all the way through all 10 of your buckets, let's say, right, like a bartender would go down the bar filling up the shot glasses until they're all full, just in one even stream, right? Then you're only going to be able to put so much water in each bucket. So at the end of the day, each bucket is only going to be filled up by a slight, slight amount because you had to, you had to distribute out all of your water that you have to all 10 buckets. There's not just 10, I'm just using that number as an example, right? And so if you keep doing this every day, you're going to have micro growth in all the areas of your life or your business, but you're not really going to be able to see it or realize it because it's so small. It's so small and so insignificant in every area. You're growing overall, but you can't see it because it's not noticeable in any one particular area. It's just overall little drops of water every day in each bucket. And so you're sat there looking at your buckets and you're like, are these things like filling up at all? Like, what the fuck, man? You know, like, I feel like I've been pouring into this shit every day, but like, why is it not overflowing yet? Like, why is there not more water in here? Right, are we getting it? So this is the problem with trying to do everything and trying to be in every area, every category, or every bucket of your life or your business at all times, is that the growth becomes so micro that you can't actually see it. And it's not that you're not growing, but you do start to feel frustrated may be discouraged, and you're more inclined to give up if you feel like you can't see the results or the progress. So the bucket theory involves looking at your total number of buckets— we're using 10 as the example in this episode— and having a look at what are the few buckets that actually really matter right now in your life? What is the priority area or bucket for you to focus on? And how can you start taking your one cup of daily water, daily energy, effort, time, and resources, and pouring more of that daily cup into maybe just two of those buckets? Because if you did that every day for several weeks or months, those two buckets would start to get extremely full. And then you would have the reward of feeling like, oh my gosh, I can see the growth, I can see the progression. This is working. Things are moving. There's forward momentum, right? And then when you get to a place where those two buckets are moderately full or very full or overflowing, then you can decide, okay, I feel really great in this area right now. What— now I'm gonna shift my priorities again and I'm gonna think about what are the other bucket or buckets that I want to focus on next for the next 90 days or the next 6 months, right? And you spend that time pouring your 1 cup of water per day into mostly just the categories that you've identified as the most important, right? The ones that are your priority. You can save a couple of drops for the other buckets so that they're not drying out or dwindling down or, you know, getting down to zero. So you can have a couple of drops in those other areas of your life and business, but the main, the main bulk of your daily water, of your daily cup, is going to just 1 to 3 buckets. And this is really just a metaphor for prioritizing certain areas of your life and being okay with putting other areas of your life on the back burner, or finding ways to minimize them, delegate them, or do less of them so that you can experience more massive rapid growth in the areas that really matter to you. So if you're trying to figure out what are the areas that are really important to you, this is, you know, this is the whole reason why we fail with prioritization in the first place, is because we want to do everything, we want to be good at everything, we want to pour into everything. And so we avoid having to make the decision of what is the actual priority, or we go, okay, you You know, right now growing my business is the priority for me. We say that in our head, but then we don't take any action to actually minimize or backburner the other buckets. So then we end up stuck in our pattern of how we normally do things, and we're still spending the same amount of time on all the other shit. And then we're wondering, you know, I keep telling myself my business needs to be the priority. Why is it not showing up that way? Why am I not getting the results from that? Why am I still finding myself without enough time to pour into my business? And it's because you didn't set the boundaries with yourself or create the structure to actually minimize the other buckets. And that's huge. That's a big piece of where we make a mistake, right? We decide the priorities, but then we don't do anything about the other areas. In order to effectively minimize them or delegate them. So then what good is it to decide that you have priorities if there's no space and time to actually prioritize them? Right? We can see the fuckery that happens in our minds.

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There's a couple of things that have to happen, and the first thing is that you've got to sit down and figure out what actually is most important to you. And I think a really great way to do this is to do some scripting or journaling where you write out in the present tense as if it's already happened the experience of your next level life, of your kind of dream scenario of what you're working towards and what you're wanting to experience in the near-ish future. Right? And so you write this out of, you know, I wake up every day, da da da da da. This is what I'm doing for work. This is what I'm experiencing. This is what I'm feeling. This is the time that I have. This is how I spend my time. This is what my bank accounts look like. This is what money feels like. Whatever it is for you, right? You script out that next level version of your life and where you're headed. And then you take a look at that and you kind of dissect it to unpack and understand, okay, given that this is my vision, this is what I'm hoping for, this is what I'm dreaming of, this is what I'm desiring, this is what I'm moving towards. What would need to be the two main priorities in order for me to get closer to this? Right. Not for me to accomplish everything inside of this vision, not for me to tick off the entire list. It's just what are the main two buckets of my life or my business that would need more time, energy, and attention in order for me to get aggressively closer? To this vision? That's going to help you figure out what your buckets are that need more focus, that need more water. Now that you have that, the next question is, what are the buckets that I can afford to set off to the side or just fill with minimal droplets each day? So what are the areas of my life that I can set on the back burner a little bit, or I can delegate, or I can minimize in some way. And you've got to make a plan for this part, because if you don't do this part, then the other part about choosing your buckets of priority is useless. You also have to identify what are the buckets that are going to be minimized. They're going to be paid less attention to. They're going to be filled less on a daily basis with water, a.k.a. time, attention, energy, money, resources. And what does that actually look like, right? So let's say, um, I'm gonna give you an example from real story of my life, right? So I talk about this in From Burnt Out to Badass when we're talking about, you know, there's a chapter in the program called The Slight Edge, and it's about the things that are easy to do and they're also easy not to do. And we kind of talk about goals and the bigger vision for your life and, and what has to happen in for you to get there. And I kind of tell the story of the time in my life when I was really in, in hustle mode, I guess you could say, of building my business. Now, I don't really love the word hustle because I think it has some negative connotations, and there's far too many women that are addicted to hustling anyway. There are some people that get motivated by that context. Maybe if you're like really in your feminine and you're like, I just I'm really craving more of that masculine energy. You're like, okay, yes, hustle resonates for me. But someone who's like addicted to productivity and is a pretty hard worker and usually overextends themself, hustle is not really a word that's for us or that's going to be motivating to us. But that's the best way that I can describe this era of my life when I was really in the trenches of still working full-time and building my business, utilizing social media and trying to grow a following, an engaged audience, people that cared about the information that I had and what I wanted to share, right? So I'm in this phase, which is, in my opinion, it's the hardest phase of building a business, is when you are still working full-time. You don't have the, the traction yet on social media where people want to buy from you all the time. Like everything still requires a lot more energy and time and attention behind it in order for it to work. And so I'm in this phase, I'm working full-time as a teaching assistant in Spain, um, from 9 to 5, and then working on my business after that. And so in this era of my life, I realized that I was not going to be able to continue to do all of the same things at the same rate as I was before. I wasn't going to be able to go to the gym 5 days a week anymore because that was a luxury that I could afford when I was not building a business. And I couldn't afford to spend my entire Saturday meal prepping and doing all kinds of like healthy baked goods and making recipes and posting them on my blog because it wasn't actually moving the needle in my business and it was taking a lot of were taking up a lot of precious time. And although I liked doing those things, I knew that I was just going to have to do them a little bit less, right? And so it's not always about like eliminating the buckets and throwing them completely out, but like I said, feeding them with just little droplets, not giving too much of your precious daily cup of water to the buckets that don't actually move the needle for you. And so for me, I had to make a really conscious decision of, you know what, I'm not going to go to the gym 5 days a week anymore. I'm going to go twice and then maybe like an at-home workout that's shorter and quicker and easier. And there's not like, you know, time to get there and get home and all of that stuff. And then that probably even went down from there at a certain point of growing the business, which was like, okay, I can't even do that anymore. Fitness for me was something that I used to really, really enjoy and be into. And, you know, Jaime and I would go to the gym every night, and I could be at the gym from 8 until 9:30, or sometimes we'd even go as late as like 9 PM. But I couldn't do that stuff anymore when I was working full-time and building a business. So I had to decide, okay, this is a bucket that's going to get significantly less water per day for this time period, not forever, but it's for this time period to create sufficient space and reserve my precious 1 cup of water so that I can pour it into the buckets that are actually going to move the needle and start getting me closer to my dream life and being able to quit my job. And then, you know what, when I don't have this 9-to-5 job anymore, I can build my business in those hours and I can reintegrate in a lot of these things that I set off to the side. But the growth in the business is going to be faster if I have more water to pour into them. And so there were certain things like that, you know, like going out with friends or like doing weekend trips where you're like completely— because we were in Europe at the time, so it's really easy to just do like weekend trips, but then you're gone all day Friday through Sunday. You get back, it's you're tired, you have to unpack, you have to grocery shop, then you got to go to work on Monday. Like, that didn't fit anymore with the priority that I had, which was my main bucket, which was building my business. And so things like that, along with, you know, going to the gym as much as I used to and spending time, so much time like in the kitchen cooking and baking and doing all those things, like all of that just had to become significantly less in order for my energy, attention, and focus to really go towards building the business. So thinking about, you know, where you are at this phase in your life, because again, it's not just this one choice and then you choose it forever. Your buckets are always adjusting and adapting to where you're at and what your main goals are, which is why I'm giving you guys the exercise of sitting down and doing that scripting exercise about what is my next level version of my life? What am I trying to— what am I moving towards? You know, what am I desiring? And looking at that vision and really asking yourself, okay, so in order to get aggressively closer to this, what are the 1 to 3 buckets maximum that need to be optimized, that need way more daily water? And then what are the ones that I can kind of set off to the side or minimize or do less of. And I know this is kind of like a silly theory, but I think the metaphor of looking at it like you've got this daily cup of water and, you know, how are you going to fill those buckets is something that really kind of shifts it for you in your head of being like, oh, like, yeah, duh, right? You're only going to see the water go up so much if you're trying to pour into every single bucket every single day. And I think this is something that we have to wrap our egos around as well, or kind of combat what our ego has to say about it, because we want to be 100% in every area. You know, we all want to be the, the fitness gal, the fashionista, the business owner, the volunteer, the perfect dog mom, the best friend that does fun, cute, trendy activities all the time with her girlfriends, the best girlfriend or wife that does family activities and trips. And, you know, we, we want to eat well and we want to— we want to be the best version of ourselves in every single area. And I think that is is so beautiful of us, and it's a reflection of our true human desire for growth and progress. But if you are feeling stagnant because you're not seeing the growth or the progress, maybe it's because your time, energy, and effort is too widely distributed. It's— you're pouring into all these different areas when you really need to like hone it in and focus on just a few so that you can see the progress, because that's going to build your confidence ultimately, right? When you hone in on 2 buckets and you pour into them with the majority of your time, energy, effort, money, resources every single day for several weeks or months, you are going to see results. There's no way that you can't, right? And so when you see those results, you're going to have a boost in your confidence of feeling like, oh my God, like it's working. And when we feel like things are working, we naturally get more motivated. And so we're able to hold more, we're able to do more. And so it's just this beautiful domino effect of allowing yourself to get results in one area to fuel your motivation to then get results in the next area instead of trying to get results across the board all at the same time and then feeling like none of it's working, Feeling discouraged, feeling disappointed, spiraling into comparison. Why is everybody else doing it? And it doesn't work for me. And, and, and, and, and, and ego mind comes on board and ruins the whole thing and tells us that we're a piece of shit and that it's never gonna work for us and that we're failing and that, you know, this is the worst thing ever and it's never gonna happen for us. And then where do we go from there? Are you gonna feel super motivated from there to be like, okay, don't worry, just keep going? No, you're gonna feel like a piece of garbage. So this is where I think we really go wrong when it comes to pursuing our own growth and results and progress in life, is that we're so obsessed with being perfect in every area that we cheat ourselves out of actually seeing the progress and giving ourselves a boost of confidence and motivation to keep going and then tackle the other areas after that. So that's bucket theory for you guys, whether it's focusing on your health or manifesting a relationship or progressing in your career, or maybe starting a family, becoming a mom, focusing on, focusing on your kids. Maybe you're transitioning to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe you're wanting to really get into fitness and feel really great in your body. Maybe you're building a business Whatever it is that is the main deep desire of your soul right now, I encourage you to look at that bucket and think about how you could pour more into it if you were better distributing your daily water source, and where you need to pour less into so that you can afford to pour more into that main objective or that main bucket. So I hope you guys found this episode helpful. If you liked it, and if you're going to start practicing and implementing the bucket theory, take a screenshot of this episode, share it to your stories, tag me at @samanthadaily and at Makeshift Happen Podcast. I love to see when you guys reshare the episodes because it lets me know what kind of episodes you are liking. So I will create more episodes of that style. So if you did enjoy it, take a screenshot, share it to stories, Or you can always copy the link of this episode wherever you're listening, whether it's on Spotify or Apple, and send it directly to someone who you think would enjoy it. So a mom, friend, sister, coworker, whoever. Spreading the love and sharing the podcast is the way that we continue to grow. Thank you guys so, so much for all the listens and showing up every single week. I love you so much. I'm so excited to see some of you on the retreat in person, squeeze you, give you hugs. Dance around, play the best music, do deep, intense work together, the most incredible workshops. I have so much in store for retreat attendees. I cannot wait. If you guys have any questions, you can always shoot me a DM or email info@samanthadaily.com. All right. Love you guys so much. I will talk to you next week. Bye.