It’s surprising what a difference it makes, thinking over our experiences and learning.
You’d imagine that if we put all that stuff into our heads the process would be automatic after that—that we could rely on our brains to process everything comprehensively; to form all the connections that there are to form; and to generate all the ideas there are to generate. After all, we’ve put it all in one pot.
In my experience, it doesn’t work like that. The “stuff” mostly just lies there.
Instead, to make the most of what we have—all that accumulated wisdom—we do need to find ways of sifting through our experiences and new things we’ve learned. We do need to do that deliberately. And we do need to create the opportunity for new patterns to emerge.
In other words, both time to reflect and some particular approach to reflection are important.
Talking things over with other people is obviously one way, especially if they have some skill in listening and questioning. Another is writing a journal. Whatever the specifics, expressing what’s inside stimulates new realisations. Particular frameworks and models and new ways of looking at things help.
It’s like we need to cross and recross the ground in different directions, connecting up the pieces in new ways, and sorting out what is most important.
In other words, we need to sift.
So much, so obvious maybe.
The question is: Are we sifting enough?