There’s a process for building and sharing experiential insights. Let’s discuss how we progress through these three stages of insight building.
Aware or Clueless
If we don’t know something has happened, we’re clueless.
But, knowing something has happened is very different from knowing what has happened! Here we may ask “What just happened?”
Moreover, knowing what has happened is very different from knowing why it happened!
Finally, knowing why something happened is very different from sharing impactfully the learning, hence experiential insights, that came from that life event.
One way to move through this progression from cluelessness to shared insight is to recognize three stages of insight building.
Stage 1: Lived Experience
The first stage is having a life experience. It could be significant or insignificant.
We may be totally unaware that something has happened. Or, we may sense an event has passed across our field of vision.
But, at this point, we haven’t grasped it’s something to be concerned about. This event, and others, remain disconnected in our mind.
At this stage, we see no patterns and draw no conclusions.
Stage 2: Reflected Experience
We must have some way of recognizing what is and is not important. Thus, of knowing what’s essential.
As such, we must connect the dots of life events to make sense of things.
One method of connecting the dots is reflection. In so doing, we recognize patterns and create connections.
That deliberate thinking moves us from cluelessness to situational awareness. As a result, we grasp significance. And, we develop experiential insights based on that lived experience.
Sensemaking connects disconnected life events. Thus, life experiences lead to measurable growth when we take time to reflect on what’s happened. proverbsforprofessionals.net
Stage 3: Shared Experience
Developing experiential insight improves our responses to later events, thus is of great value to us personally.
However, we multiply the impact of that life learning by sharing those experiential insights with others.
Our insights, when shared with others, positively impact their lives. That sharing of insights is the essence of an influential life – sharing from personal experience.
In Proverbs 9.6 Godly wisdom asks us to give up simplemindedness, replacing it with sensemaking. proverbsforprofessionals.net
What’s the downside?
Ok, what happens if we never engage in reflection? What’s the downside? In other words, what could possibly go wrong?!
In Proverbs 4.5 and Proverbs 4.7 Solomon encourages us to build understanding by transforming our character. Understanding means to get a clue. He says it’s essential to make sense of things.
How so? When we fail to connect the dots of life events, according to Proverbs 4.19, we walk in darkness, not knowing what we’re stumbling over! Thus, we fail to make sense of things.
Instead, as described in Proverbs 4.18, we should pursue a life path that’s illuminated by right living and sensemaking.
Fact is, sensemaking should become a way of life for us, Proverbs 9.6. A way of life that is inherently spiritual, Proverbs 9.10!
Apply This Today!
We grow personally and professionally through experiencing, reflecting, and sharing. Each cycle through the three stages of insight building transforms our character.
Making sense of things: reduces uncertainty, lessens our chances of taking inappropriate action, and reduces stumbling-in-the-dark!
Are all experiences of equal importance? No! Hence, the need for discernment because not every event warrants a response. Remember that old saying about not throwing rocks at every dog that barks at you along the way, else you never reach your destination! In short, sometimes we should let it go!
A Question to Consider
What helps you force time for deliberate reflection into your daily or weekly schedule?
I’m Dale Young. My posts share the balanced life to build wise character and guide wise behavior.
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