Amy Lindgren
I was talking with a Japanese woman a few weeks ago, here in the U.S. to improve her English, when we ran into one of those inexplicable idioms Americans are so fond of. The conversation turned to travel and I asked what trips were on her bucket list.
Oops. No problem with the word “bucket,” and “list” was certainly clear. But “bucket list”? It only got worse when I used another idiom to explain — “You know, what you want to do before you kick the bucket?”
We figured ourselves out eventually but the exchange got me to thinking: Do we have bucket lists for our careers? When I encounter “bucket list” in usage, the other person is usually referring to a more global set of dreams, with the personal and professional and family and adventure all mixed together. And of course, the ever-present travel goals.
A look online reveals a multitude of articles and even products to help create your own bucket list. There are books, worksheets, financial planning tools … it’s almost a cottage industry in America to write down our dreams and plan our great adventures.
Borrowing from the most common principles I saw in my brief search, I’ll set the stage here for a bucket list that helps you (and me) imagine what might be possible in a fulfilling work life.
• Don’t hold back. Off the top of your head, what would you love to achieve in your career? Don’t be practical; just write stuff down. Maybe your career bucket list would include running your own company or working remotely while sailing around the world or getting a Master’s degree or learning to weld or fixing lawn mowers in your retirement years or earning $100,000 or taking a sabbatical to write your novel or gaining a certain certification or … have I hit yours yet?
Your career bucket list could also include a variety of jobs or work you’ve always wanted to try. Have you ever wanted to work for a rodeo or travel the world for your job, or be the beach lifeguard for a summer? On the list it goes.
• Cluster the answers. For someone wishing to travel to both Australia and New Zealand, it seems somewhat obvious they could plan one trip to cover both destinations. How about your career dreams — are there any that could be combined to support each other?
For example, if you want your own company but also dream of fixing lawn mowers in retirement, maybe your company could relate to lawn mowers in some way.
No worries if things don’t seem to cluster easily. It’s just a step to try, in case any natural pairings emerge.
• Prioritize your answers. If the original list is long, there’s no need to rank them past the first five or so. The idea is to identify a handful that feel important to you, not to micro-stratify a huge list.
• Review your priority answers. To help with this question, you could create a system for marking the items on the list. For example, an asterisk could go next to those things you’ve been considering for a long time, while a bullet could go next to those you think would be the most fun, and perhaps another symbol by those items that would open doors for other things.
Once you’ve marked items for different attributes, you can do some more ranking / prioritizing by notating those that have two or more symbols next to them. These would be the bucket list items that check the most boxes for you.
• Decide what to do. Bucket lists can be just for fun, so you don’t have to do anything at all if you don’t want. Just put the list in a drawer and amuse yourself stumbling on it later. In that case, prepare to be surprised. It turns out that simply writing something down can be the first step in making it happen, even when you don’t have a specific plan. Years from now you might be amazed to see how many bucket list items happened “all on their own.”
On the other hand, making the list might inspire you to achieve certain goals. In that case, you could have the pleasure of checking things off the list as they happen, or perhaps revising the list to include new ideas.
From what I can tell, there’s no best way to handle a bucket list. Just enjoy the process, and hopefully the results as well.
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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.
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