A time of change forces us to take decisions without knowing how things are going to turn out.
One way to become better at this is to learn from our past — especially from times when things did not turn out in the way we wanted or expected.
To do this, first think back to a time when you took a decision where events didn’t turn out in the way you wanted or expected.
Then ask yourself four questions:
- Remember the situation: What was going on? What was the choice you made? What did you expect the outcome to be? What actually happened instead?
- What story did you tell yourself about this at the time? Did you judge it as a ‘failure’? Did you tell yourself that you ‘should‘ have known what was going to happen? Did you blame yourself or others for how things turned out? And, with hindsight, what other interpretations are also possible?
- What other actions might you have taken instead — to ignore, leave, fix, or improve the situation or prevent it from arising in the first place? What could you have chosen to learn from the situation?
- Knowing all this, would you still make the same choice again? Or would you choose a different action?
To get the maximum benefit, answer these four questions before you read on.
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What was your answer to the final question?
If you decided that you would still make the same choice today then that teaches you that you can trust the choices you make today. Because even if things don’t turn out in the way you want or expect, it is still the right choice for you to make.
And if you decided that you would make a different choice then that means that you can still trust the choices you make today because even if things don’t turn out in the way you want or expect, you will still be able to learn from what happens and make a better choice next time — in the same way that you have learned to make a better choice today.
In this time of massive change, nobody can predict what is going to happen. And with so much change happening so fast, all we can be sure of is that many things are going to turn out differently from the way we want and expect. That is just the way it is.
So what matters is not the ability to predict what will happen. In an uncertain world, that is impossible. What matters is to be clear who we are and what matters most to us. Then let go of our assumptions, find the opportunities in the situation, choose the best way forward for us, manage our upsides and downsides, and then inspire ourselves and others to make that goal happen — knowing that we won’t always get it right. And if we don’t then that is OK. Because even when the situation turns out differently from how we expected we can still learn and move on.
This is the attitude that enabled Thomas Edison to invent the lightbulb. Each time he failed he said:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Learning from our past, especially from times when things didn’t turn out in the way we wanted or expected, enables us to take another step towards becoming antifragile.
Over the next six months, do you expect it will become more important or less important to be able to take decisions without knowing how things are going to turn out? What steps are you taking to prepare for that?
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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