And finally, if your brain does not get feedback, it cannot
know whether what it has experienced is something you want it to
have more of or not, if it is important or trivial, life enhancing or
life threatening.The craft of reflecting
As Mike Hughes has written: “Trying to learn without reviewing is
like trying to fill a bath without putting the plug in.”
Unless you are prepared to make a real effort to review and
reflect on what you have experienced, your learning—just like the
bath water—is being wasted. The more you can learn from what
you have done, the more you will be able to adapt and change.
Many people choose to write down their reflections. Here are
three different approaches.
Will Hutton, ex-Fleet Street editor, not surprisingly chooses
the medium of the printed page:I am a writer. I have to express myself on paper. The act of writing forces
me to sort out what I think. It’s like storytelling. The same is true of public
speaking. I trust my brain to come up with what I think and what I want
to say.In an echo of this, Sir Michael Bichard says:Learning is about reflecting on experience and situations, working out how
to do things differently. I do a lot of public speaking and use these oppor-
tunities as a chance to force myself to reflect on what has gone before.Sir Bob Reid is quite specific:In all my jobs I meticulously write down what I feel about things in the first
weeks. Then I put it away for six months and look at it again later to reflect
on what I wrote and felt.Zoe van Zwanenberg keeps an occasional journal:198 Power Up Your Mind