4 Ways to Learn from Experience

There are at least four ways to learn from experience: experimenting, reflective critique, feedback and learning questions.

Experimenting is trying new things and common things in new ways. Experimenting yields far more learning than analysis paralysis and death by discussion.

Reflective critique extracts learning forward from any experiences on the success-failure continuum. Experience is only a teacher when we reflect back from it.

Feedback is discovering how useful or not useful our efforts are for others. It is particularly helpful when it's based on our learning questions.

Learning questions are what we are most curious about, what we want to explore, discover or master. They make us more attuned to new learning from any experiences going forward.

The power of direct feedback

It's interesting across domains of performance, learning happens predominantly through feedback. Coaches facilitate the awareness and use of direct feedback in endless iterations of small experiments inspired by progress. The purpose of any tips, tricks or stories is to inspire the creativity and permission for experimenting. The best are those that bring about the most useful feedback.

Direct feedback is feedback from action. It's seeing the direct result of what we do. It's not the assessments and opinions of performers or coaches.