Life's experiences - evaluate & improve

Someone once said that life is but a collection of experiences. When you speak to someone, isn't it true that if he has more experiences to share, that person is also more interesting to talk to; compared to another who has little or no experiences.

I find this to be true. During my training sessions, the more experiences I share with the participants about what we went through with other Schools; the more interesting the sessions turn out to be.

However, I also believe that with experiences we will need to exercise two key principles in order to get the most out of the experiences. One, is to evaluate or reflect on the experience. Say, if the experience was conducting a session where participants didn't find it useful, it is important to evaluate or reflect on that experience.

Here, evaluation must be done looking from a different perspective or seen from a bigger picture point of view. In other words, evaluated experiences give us perspectives. It could shed light on areas that we fail to see. Give us insights into certain angles of the same issue.

This will also give us plausible solutions or different ways of addressing the same issue with better results. Here, it brings to light what better ways we can approach this matter and bring about different and better outcomes. At this point, it is important to bring in the second principle; improve or to have the self-discipline to make changes to bring about better results.

It is not enough to know that we need to do things differently. It is also not sufficient to think of the possible ways to do it. We must also act on it. Once an experience is evaluated, we must take the steps to improve our approach. So that we will not be dragged into the same outcome again. The situation might be the same but the approach will be different and hence it might bring about better results.

So remember; while life is a collection of experiences, these experiences must be evaluated and the approaches must be improved so as to bring about better outcomes!

Your friend,
Melvyn
(Sent from my Blackberry Bold)