Top Highlights

• However, learning by experience is not always simple. First, sometimes we don't learn from our experiences! Or, at least, we don't recognise the mistakes we make, or we learn the wrong lessons, and so don't do much better next time. It is usually easier to account for things going wrong in terms of what the other person did, or in terms of other ex...
• Secondly, thinking about our own practice isn't something that most of us take seriously as a matter of course. Indeed, as far as much of our life is concerned, there are definite pressures that work against it. They spring from the distinctive characteristics of work and the increasing complexity of our lives. In particular, the pace, variety, fra...
• Superficial understandings and responses are one way of coping, and any deeper reflection feels like a luxury we cannot afford.
• Lastly, you will learn a great deal more, and a great deal more quickly, if you are ruthlessly strict with yourself. If, for example, you draw a diagram and it doesn't seem quite right, you could suppress the feeling and press on. But there'll be huge dividends in stopping, trying to see what is wrong, drawing another version and so on until you ar...
• As Sir Geoffrey Vickers also wrote: We the trapped, tend to take our own state of mind for granted - which is partly why we are trapped.