Over the past months, many of us have found more time to think about our learning. As we have moved from one lockdown to another, we find solace from pouring fresh knowledge into our minds, partly for learning but partly to feel community.

But

did you know that 60% of people learn more from external sources than they do from formal courses and that the best learning comes from stretching experiences where you can apply the knowledge that you have just acquired?

Many of us are totally committed to our learning. We have good conversations, attend great and highly informative provocations and perhaps scribble copious notes or doodles to help us remember. As we turn the page on that provocation, we turn the page perhaps on embedding that learning unless we take the next step and apply the knowledge.

How we apply that knowledge effectively is deeply personal. We may decide to journal (a process of capturing our eclectic or structured thoughts), we may decide to meditate and ponder the ‘so what does this mean’ question? We may decide to ‘phone a friend’ and complete that conversation, or we may decide to continue that piece of research by ‘googling’ the subject looking for more triggers.

Did you know that workers who spent 15 minutes at the end of the day writing and reflecting on what they had learned that day were 20 percent more productive than those who had not.

Perhaps when we think about our learning, we should also take some time as part of that learning to reflect on the impact, potential benefit, future investigation and opportunity through some form of formal after action review.

You could use keep, improve, start and stop type activities where you actively triage the new knowledge or experience through a set of filters.
You could evaluate what worked, and what didn’t as part of this review

The big learn though is not what you have just attended, it is how you apply it to your future journey.

Co Coaching

When we run our Co Coaching, an important part of the outcomes is embedded through post reflection of the session. A template is supplied after the event as part of the certificate of attendance to prompt reflection.

For those that have not experienced co-coaching, this is an activity where coaches come together and practice their coaching on each other. Receiving feedback is one of the gifts you receive, as well as good discussion, support and the opportunity to be coached.

More details on forthcoming events can be accessed here (next event on 8th February 13:30 to 15:30).

Some additional reading?

Over the past week, I have come across some strange, weird wonderful articles that I thought I would share.

• The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life based around “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ~Eckhart Tolle
• How to Support an Employee with a Chronic Health Condition – in the US, 60% of adults have at east one chronic health condition. With ‘long’ Covid, perhaps we need to become a bit more aware because our clients may have this.
• Revisiting the ‘brain drain effect’: Having a mobile phone on the desk doesn’t always impair your memory.

On 1st February, we will be launching our curated news service. This will send through some specially curated reads direct to your inbox, as well as giving you access to a really useful search tool to aid in research. Initially, we will be limiting this to 20 users so do get in touch here for more information nearer the time.

Next few weeks

Over the next few weeks, we will be dipping into vast subject of mental health – things that we should be looking out for as coaches when we coach, how we work with the challenges that today brings us, as well as looking after ourselves. If you have anything that you want to share, please let me know – fully attributed of course.

… and remember to check out our recommended coaching magazine, and tools.

Book Launch

A book being released in early February (and available now to preorder), is ‘Empowerment in Health and Wellness’. It brings an approach on the mind-body connection with relation to stress and anxiety reduction, building motivation and personal leadership and enabling people to respond to the needs of their current reality.

Thanks to Sue Jackson (one of the authors) for this detail.

More information on this over here.

Please take care and keep socially distanced.

All my best,