Squeezing the most from learning

When we embark on a course or learning program, we can want to ‘soak it all up’ and learn ‘as much as we can’. 

We want to squeeze all we can from it. 

But learning ‘as much as we can’ puts pressure and expectations on the act of learning ... and on ourselves. 

If we’re trying to learn as much as we can, the problem is, there is no end to that. It could be limitless. 

You can keep learning, soaking and absorbing, but until we put some of it into practice, our mind will fill up to overflowing. 

This is cognitive overload. 
Over. Load. 

Instead of ‘learning as much as’, go for ‘learning enough to ...’. 

That’s 
- Enough to get started
- Enough to put something into practice
- Enough to try it out. 

Putting learning into practice sooner gives us feedback, insights, and ... opportunities for more learning. 

This is how to get better value from learning. 


Are you going for:

- as much as, quantity, an amount of learning? 

or 

- learning via experiments and practical applications?

It’s the second that will help with the adoption of newly found skills. 

Test, don’t judge ideas

Working on something and wondering how it will be received? 

It’s so easy to swing into judgement mode and decide how it’s going to end up. 

That they won’t buy it. 
That they won’t like it. 
That they don’t need it. 
That they won’t understand it. 

And we haven’t even tested it out yet! 

We can spend a lot of energy thinking and rethinking, assessing and judging. But we may not be the best judges of the things we make ourselves. 

Much better to test our ideas out on people... the people who we are working with or targeting with our ideas. 

Otherwise we may think what we’ve done isn’t good enough.

Until we’ve tested it out, it could be better to hold that judgement. As hard as that is. 

If you or your team have got something you’re still thinking about, wondering how it will go ...put it out there and test it. 

Get some valuable insights and feedback - then you can be more objective about your ideas. 

Test it out sooner

Have an idea for a business, a hunch for a service or planning for a project?
We can find ourselves overthinking, overworrying and overwondering what our probability for success will be. 
Accelerating through the wonder and worry and getting to success is possible though. 

The way to do that is to test out the idea. And sooner than you think. 

Testing something may mean it’s not completely finished, yet. So, how could you test? 

▶️ Talk to your market about your idea and gather their responses. 
▶️ Create a rough version or prototype. 
▶️ Run a trial or pilot. 

Each of these are tests that give us way more insight than continuing to think, worry and wonder. 

Time is saved, our effort is reduced (in pursuing things that may not have the result we hoped for), and we get to validate with the people who matter. 

Yes it could be scary putting yourself and your ideas out there. But you’ll get invaluable feedback and then be able to tweak your offer. Continuing to wonder or to ask people who aren’t in your market is less effective. 

Are you willing to find out sooner, reduce wasted effort and get to a result sooner? 

Test sooner. 

Getting closer

Rather than pushing my group workshops and group training programs all online in groups ... I’m going the other way. I’m going 1:1 or a small group of 2, 3...

Sure it’s taking me longer but I’m not going anywhere, and the closer conversations, engagement and interactions have been more personalized and joyous. We find out more about each other, how we’re managing, what our world is like ... and I set about transferring my skills and knowledge directly to you on capabilities like:

🌟Facilitating

⭐️Sensemaking & Cognitive Load Coping

✨Visuals - analogue and digital

💥Developing your own ideas and thinking

☀️Adapting your positioning and brand

💫Boosting your creativity and idea generation.

We don’t need to do what everyone else is doing. It’s easy to copy, follow a herd or pack or think ‘oh that’s what I have to do too’ in times like these. It’s equally a time when trying something different could be just what’s needed.

Are you experimenting or just following what others are doing in response to change?

Experiment, adapt and respond in line with who you are and how you think and work. It’s time to be even more a part of your services than less. No need to default to ‘copy’ because it’s not the only way. 

Willing to start

So many ideas, so little time. It’s a feeling we can have that can make us not even bother with the work of putting any of our ideas out there. But they’re not really ideas until they are ‘out there’. Until then they are just thoughts.

So on the theme of 'willing' : ready, keen and eager ... are you willing to - start? Perfectionists among us hold off on pressing ‘go’ or registering the domain, writing the blog or making the call. Yet we’re willing to think and imagine for hours, potentially days. And not act. Waiting, wondering, rehearsing, imagining. All that mental and creative effort that never gets a return on our investment of time.

How about we be willing? Yes, we don’t know the outcome; and yes, we can’t control it. But the products we buy, the services we use and the people we admire have all required someone who was willing to start.

Will you? Won’t you?