In the thirteenth century, Nasreddin, the wise fool of Sufi folklore was asked how he had learnt so much. He replied, “I simply talk a lot and when I see people agreeing, I write down what I have said!” Thankfully, the concept of learning has undergone significant change since the days of Nasreddin.

Traditionally, learning was seen as something that preceded action. You completed school, college, training and were fully accredited to launch your career; the expectation being you had all the expertise required. Last century, Reg Revans pioneered the concept of ‘action learning’. Reg realised that with the increasing acceleration of change, much of what we learned in our training was, within a few years, irrelevant to the world we worked in. Revans’ Law states The rate of learning must be greater or equal to the rate of change in the external environment. That’s a tall ask, considering the dramatic increase in the rate of change in our generation.

These days Professional Development holds to a 70:20:10 principle. Seventy percent of professional learning happens on the job, ten percent by attending courses and twenty percent through coaching and mentoring. Experience is not necessarily a great teacher. A study completed five years ago, followed 173 therapists over 18 years and discovered that, whilst a minority of therapists improved, generally client outcomes decreased as therapists gained experience. The therapists who reflected on their practice and created opportunities to receive feedback were the ones who improved. Reflection on what we have done provides us with insights that become the foundation of our future actions. Without this, we become stuck in a rut, get left behind, experience boredom and lose our spark.

It’s not just in the professional sphere where embodied learning takes place. The 70:20:10 principle may actually be relevant to our relationships. Is there anyone who can claim to be totally skilled in parenting prior to the birth of their first child? Or that you knew exactly what makes for a successful partnership prior to being in a relationship? No, it’s on-site learning when it comes to navigating our way through life’s connections. And like the study on therapists discovered, many of us don’t get better at it with experience. In fact, over time we can feel like we have lost our ability to connect and become increasingly isolated.

Typically, the reason for our regression is that we have failed to approach our relationships with a learning or growth mindset. A growth mindset doesn’t attribute relationship problems to character flaws that can’t be fixed. A growth mindset accepts that the perfect relationship doesn’t exist and allows us to be comfortable with this reality. A growth mindset enables us to tackle challenges and learn from them. A growth mindset acknowledges that making mistakes is part of the human experience. A growth mindset gives us the option to reflect on our mistakes and turn them into opportunities for change. Adopting lifelong learning benefits every part of our lives.

Linda Gray
linda@relationshipsanctuary.com.au
0401 517 243