Turns out this whole learning from experience thing actually works
This post is part of a group writing project on the theme of "What I Learned This Year" being spearheaded by Ben Yoskovitz at the Instigator Blog.
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Professionally, 2006 has been a really interesting year.
First and foremost, I was lucky enough to be able to spearhead a project—on my employers dime, no less—that embodied a lot of my personal passions, interests and beliefs.
Besides being lots and lots of fun this was also quite a challenge.
One of the things I learned along way was how alarmingly easy it is to lose sight of your convictions when you're focused on execution and all of the minutia it entails. It wasn’t until I slowed down and came up for air that realized I had been drifting away from some of the ideas and principles that had intially inspired me to take the project on.
And even though I eventually caught myself drifting and cranked the wheel hard to get back on course, I remain surprised by the experience.
And humbled.
And there’s more—an extra layer of irony to really drive it home. You see, foremost among the convictions I ended up losing sight of was a belief in the importance of remaining relentlessly focused on the user.
Which is exactly the opposite of what started to happen as I drifted towards myopia.
So anyhow, I think there are a few worthwhile lessons in there. Lessons about the difference between theory and practice, vision and execution. Lessons about human fallibility and our capacity for self-deception. And lessons about stones and glass houses, too.
Here’s hoping each and every one of them sticks in my rusty ol’ noodle.
Tags: lessons, insights, whatIlearned, what_i_learned
- - -
Professionally, 2006 has been a really interesting year.
First and foremost, I was lucky enough to be able to spearhead a project—on my employers dime, no less—that embodied a lot of my personal passions, interests and beliefs.
Besides being lots and lots of fun this was also quite a challenge.
One of the things I learned along way was how alarmingly easy it is to lose sight of your convictions when you're focused on execution and all of the minutia it entails. It wasn’t until I slowed down and came up for air that realized I had been drifting away from some of the ideas and principles that had intially inspired me to take the project on.
And even though I eventually caught myself drifting and cranked the wheel hard to get back on course, I remain surprised by the experience.
And humbled.
And there’s more—an extra layer of irony to really drive it home. You see, foremost among the convictions I ended up losing sight of was a belief in the importance of remaining relentlessly focused on the user.
Which is exactly the opposite of what started to happen as I drifted towards myopia.
So anyhow, I think there are a few worthwhile lessons in there. Lessons about the difference between theory and practice, vision and execution. Lessons about human fallibility and our capacity for self-deception. And lessons about stones and glass houses, too.
Here’s hoping each and every one of them sticks in my rusty ol’ noodle.
Tags: lessons, insights, whatIlearned, what_i_learned
Labels: lessons, what I learned
1 Comments:
It is amazingly scary how fast you can lose yourself or your goal when you are taking on so much at once. You try doing everything to impress everyone else and once you are close to finishing you realize it wasn't what YOU yourself wanted it to be. I hope you have many more projects come the new year that end up being the real reasons why you took them in the first place.
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