Lessons We Learn Over and Over
Some lessons I get immediately. But some, I’ve learned more times than I can count. Or more times than I’d like to.
If I’m repeating mistakes, am I actually learning their lessons?
I think I am. But there’s a difference between knowing and believing. And there’s a difference between knowing and changing.
Case in point: I seem to have an overactive empathy gene. This is great for marketing. But mine seems to be so active that, when I read certain kinds of books, I seem to absorb the oeuvre into my very bones.
Last year, I read The Lying Lives of Adults...all these discontented adults and this girl coming of age amongst them all in very complicated ways...oh, I was so discontented while I read that book. And then this summer, a few days into Klara and the Sun, a lovely novel...but there’s something achingly earnest and searching about the narrator. Suddenly, I was trying to figure out where this ache deep in my bones had come from.
So, I finally get it. I have to be incredibly purposeful about the media I consume.
Plenty of productivity and leadership experts have written about this. I’ve read the advice. It was a topic of discussion among my altMBA cohorts, years ago. And there’s some helpful advice in The Accidental Creative about why it’s important in terms of what you produce.
Still, I’ve had to learn this lesson repeatedly in order to absorb it and change my behaviors to reflect it.
Another one that’s been rattling around in my brain lately: don’t make major decisions when you’ve got the twisties.
I’ve done this one more than once, too. (Are we still talking about the twisties, or have we all already forgotten about that term?)
My drive to get stuff done is usually unstoppable. I have to always be moving forward. I have to always be reaching the next level. I have to know that things are always getting better. That I’m always doing things to be better, learn more, do more...it’s one of my greatest strengths. Until it isn’t.
I look at this repeated lesson as the flip side of my GSD gene. Sometimes I just leap. Just for the sake of getting it done. Getting something done.
Some decisions should only be made when you’ve let them simmer. When you’ve given yourself a few days to think through the different angles. Directly and purposefully — sitting down and writing it out or just thinking it out with focus. But also indirectly, allowing your brain to get into that relaxed state where your best ideas happen, whether that’s running or driving or whatever it is for you.
This one, I’m still working on. Progress for me has been to recognize when I’m doing it and sometimes even clawing back that decision — Wait! I need to hit pause and think this through. (It’s ok to say what you need.)
I guess it’s no wonder that, in marketing, we find ourselves repeating the same message over and over. It’s just how we work. People need to hear from us, multiple times, often with variations on the same theme, before they actually do the thing. Same for the teams we lead, or the families we’re raising. If we recognize this phenomenon in those settings, we can recognize it in ourselves, too.