Learn From Experience

In the Jan/Feb 2006 article I introduced you to the first of my Recipes for Inner Peace from the book of that name. The first Recipe is Listening Power. Now let’s look at the second recipe called Learning from Experience. In the book Jenny is developing a new relationship. She badly wants it to work but is afraid that it will go the way of other relationships in her life. She shares her fears with Nicolas, her emotional fitness coach.

“Your experiences are the raw material from which you can learn,” Nicolas tells Jenny. “Most of us simply go through life having experience after experience without ever learning from them. I want to show you how you can make your previous experiences become your great strengths.”

Here is the recipe that Nicolas gives to Jenny. Set aside up to an hour preferably with someone who will listen to you.

RECIPE FOR LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCEnPreparatio

Write down some of your personal experiences – just a word or two that reminds you of something specific. Use the following headings to guide you: WORK, LEISURE, EDUCATION, RELATIONSHIPS, and LIFE EVENTS.

Ingredients

1 The story.
2 Discovery.
3 Proof.
4 Ownership.
5 Growth.

Method

Select an experience from your list. Tell the story of that experience then summarize it and write it down. Concentrate on one specific event and on your own personal experience of it.

Consider what you learned from that experience. Write down a summary of what you have discovered through your learning.

Third say how you now use what you have learned. This is your proof that you have discovered something as you go through life, whether you like it or not! Write it down.

Now take ownership of your own learning. What do you still want to learn or improve in this aspect of your life? Once again write this down.

Finally it is time for action and your own continued personal growth. Write down how you are going to learn what you need, in the way that works for you.

Go through the same cycle with other experiences on your list.

You will find another taste of inner peace once you begin to transform past experiences into new learning and action in this way.

After Jenny went through this recipe with Nicolas, she changed the way she communicated. She took a more assertive stance in her new relationship; she broke an old pattern to discover a new and more satisfying way to be with someone else. n