One night at work while typing away at my computer like I do each shift I asked myself I have a life bucket list. Why don’t I have a work bucket list? So that got me thinking, I have been at my current employment for 10 years now. I have been in the same position for the same 10 years, not because I do not want to advance but because there is no place for me to advance here. So I started writing a work bucket list, writing down all the things I want to accomplish in the next 5 years of my career. This is how I broke it down….
1.) Education
I started with the education or training I needed to get to the next level of my career. I wanted to obtain my Bachelor’s Degree and obtaining the certifications that I need for a management role. I planned out which college credits I needed and how long it would take me to finish them while still holding down a full-time job. I investigated which degree I needed to get to the management spot by looking at 5 different open jobs in my area looking for a manager/director. While at the same time searched to see how much the two career certificates would cost to also boost my resume.
2.) Where did I want to end up?
My next thing was marking down three positions I wanted to achieve in! The next 5 years and how those goals would help me get to my final check on my work bucket list. I wrote down Supervisor, Training Coordinator, Q/A Coordinator, and finally Manager/Director. Now, there are the steps I needed to check off in my career, I am sure your steps will be different. I also know these steps might take me longer than five years but I also need to check off one of these on the list in five years. I looked at this bucket list and a way to keep me on track on the things I wanted/needed to experience before retirement.
3.) Who I needed/wanted to meet to get to where I wanted to be.
The next section of my work bucket list was who I needed to push myself to meet. I needed to make a connection with different people throughout my career. I need to meet with CAD, Phone, Radio vendor members, these are the connections to other areas where I don’t know much about. Help with the technology side of my job, the new and upcoming equipment where I can get the advantage on others if I knew facts about the companies. I needed to meet with directors and get their advice and experience on things I felt my weaknesses were. So I applied for a scholarship and was lucky enough to get the assistance to help provide myself with a full entry into a conference where I can meet some of the people on this list.
I think everyone should have a work bucket list, in my opinion, if nothing else it was the motivation I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone. The list showed me how I was comfortable…too comfortable. I need to push myself to make these connections, to finish school, to complete these management courses. I think everyone should write down a work bucket list because no matter what position you are in now you still need to push yourself. You need to make sure you are always improving because when you sleep on yourself the fighters keep getting better and better. The fighters know the struggle and know that while the comfortable lay off and stay comfortable they are hungry and they are going to achieve what they want out of life.
– Michael
The Anxious Gent 