The 5 Steps to Mastery #4
Authentic Knowing - Wisdom - comes with Experience. You need Your Own!
The next step to mastery is to get your own experience, the energy you put into practice makes your knowing authentic. And what you learn by overcoming mistakes, along with lots of practice, makes you wise.
Experience needs action, just like developing wisdom, it's personal, an inside job. You know it's personal because you can't get it from another or give it away, you have to gain your own experience for yourself. It's just like exercise, delegation not allowed! As with the other levels, willingness to invest more energy is the key to this step to mastery.
Do You Know or just Know About it?
You may have heard someone say: "I know I should stop smoking" when he instead means, I know about stopping smoking.
Anyone saying this is saying he's addicted, he hasn't stopped and needs help to overcome his addiction. He does not have the authentic knowledge which comes with experience, yet this step to mastery is to gain experience. If he really did authentically know, he would have stopped already.
If he has put in the effort to investigate the benefits of stopping and realized it does apply to him, then he's at the next step down, understanding - and is planning to stop. If he only knows about stopping then his self sabotage means he only has the information, he's yet one more level down, and doesn't yet appreciate the benefits would apply to him.
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No matter how much you know, mistakes are natural as you gain know-how, the wisdom that comes with practice and experience. Failure is just part of the process, the word F-A-I-L is actually an acronym for:
In gaining experience, you find out that, despite thinking that this should work, it doesn't. You need something else. In racking your brains wondering what would work, you allow your intuition to come in, and it suggests trying that instead of this. It's often more than just the next logical step, it's a knowing that will work despite the lack of any evidence to support such a conclusion.
First Attempts In Learning
Since know-how includes knowing what doesn't work - being wrong - how can mistakes be a problem? When you've tried and discarded enough ways of what doesn't work, you're left with what does! Mistakes are an inevitable part of gaining essential know-how, the secret of success is to realize that failure is entirely okay rather than wrong.In gaining experience, you find out that, despite thinking that this should work, it doesn't. You need something else. In racking your brains wondering what would work, you allow your intuition to come in, and it suggests trying that instead of this. It's often more than just the next logical step, it's a knowing that will work despite the lack of any evidence to support such a conclusion.
Do you Do It?
If you do something when appropriate, then you authentically know. If you do not do it when you should, then you do NOT really know. Although you have the information, you only understand. You'll change your life when you get that thinking you know does not mean you know.
This level of authentic knowing, real know-how, needs you to get your hands dirty and do it yourself. Experience takes physical energy, not just mental effort. It creates an internal shift that you can feel and gives you real confidence, not just assumed. If you're sufficiently aware, you can tell when someone is preaching without experience, their words lack depth and authenticity.
Authentic knowing is wisdom, the secret of success.
Wisdom is personal, it can't be given or learned, and that
which is given is never wisdom.
Awareness Makes It Easier
There are many ways to put in the required energy: Experience, practice, doing it, exercising, failing, making mistakes, repeating, applying, studying, learning, action...
Now you understand why so many teachers and consultants put in major effort, yet find that their clients have no long-term benefit from their efforts. Why so many coaches are not that successful in the long-term. Why so many students fail at their endeavors. Experience can't be borrowed, learned, or assimilated, you have to do it yourself.
But wisdom in not mastery, the last step. Stay tuned.
Food for Thought
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is
the illusion of knowledge."
- Professor Stephen W. Hawking, PhD, eminent British mathematician, black hole theorist, Cambridge University Research Director. Awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009
This article was originally published at ezinearticles.com/?Authentic-Knowing-Comes-With-Experience---Part-4-of-the-5-Steps-to-Mastery&id=7397067
© Copyright worldwide Cris Baker, www.LifeStrategies.net. All rights reserved. Republishing welcomed under Creative Commons noncommercial no derivatives license preserving all links intact, so share this widely!
> There are more to enjoy in this series:
The articles explaining the 5 Steps to Mastery are:
Informed about. They only know about it
Understand. Do you really understand?
Experience gives you authentic knowing
Teach. A master knows it from all angles
Summary. Have you mastered it yet?
Caution - pretenders. They may pretend to be a master, but are they?
Informed about. They only know about it
Understand. Do you really understand?
Experience gives you authentic knowing
Teach. A master knows it from all angles
Summary. Have you mastered it yet?
Caution - pretenders. They may pretend to be a master, but are they?
> Enjoy the wisdom of different perspectives in other series of articles:
The Approach to Life series
The Bad Mood series
The Change my Life series
The Choice series
The Commitment series
The Do What Works series
The Inner Motivation series
The Personal Power series
The Right Response? series
The Right to Protect Yourself series
The Self Sabotage series
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