“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.”
Mistakes and things not going to plan are both natural and stressful, and stress highlights how different people react.
And this is important for two reasons.
The first is behavioural (and more obvious). If we understand, we can be prepared for our body’s (and other’s) reactions and modify our behaviour.
The second is that cortisol – the main stress hormone – impairs memory and learning.
When we’re under stress, physiologically, we just want to get out of Dodge. Nothing else matters – let alone learning from the situation or remembering exactly what happened.
If we are to learn from mistakes and situations, and use that data to inform our behaviour next time something isn’t going to plan.
We can’t always get what we wanted. But we can learn from the experience, if we’re mindful of the effects of stress.
This does feel like an under-discussed topic in both leadership and team dynamics.
What do we do to recognise stress and stressors in our workplace and lives?
