One of the most frustrating things for me, in my life, is that people have told me things that could help me but I never understood them enough to apply them until many months or years later. This I have known for a long time.
A new awareness struck me that I wanted to share with respect to internalizing what we hear as advice or learning and turning it into understanding.
First comes the confrontation of hearing or learning something new that is different than what we believe. There is denial or there is a silent head shake.
Or we decide that we are going to do something different. So we start learning by reading books, watching YouTube videos, and staying up late looking for more information.
Sometimes we repeat what we heard (but did not understand) telling others as if we not only understand and agree but are doing (when this really isn’t true). Let me give you an example of this. I tell the world that I attended a seminar on being a better manager. When I get back I start reading management books and tell others what I am doing and that I am changing. While never putting into your daily routine anything new at work.
I am guilty of all three of these things. But what has become clear to me now, is that we never truly understand until we become silent. We only truly understand when “it” gets expressed in our actions. Not in words or even our thoughts but in our actions.When there is no more conscious thought and the understanding of new or different knowledge becomes second nature to us.
This is the transformative nature of life at its core. It’s never at the interface between us and new knowledge. It’s when magically, what we want to become appears in our actions. It’s also why it is so difficult to change and evolve as a human. You need a lot of patience and persistence to push the “new” deep inside of yourself.
The first time you try something new or different it is never comfortable. And that’s ok if you remember to do it again until it is.