You can learn, prepare, and plan all you want but until you start to drive you won't become good at it.
This is the Walk You Through It Blog where I take you with me on a journey through things I've struggled with and together we walk through how to overcome them and move forward.
““For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” ― Aristotle
I'd like to share lesson that I've learned from an experience I've had as a supervisor at UPS.
The only way to improve
As a supervisor, one of my duties is to go out on road with new drivers and train them. I'm new to this and the other day, I learned a valuable lesson. I've recently begun training brand new drivers and it was challenging for me.
For the past 2 weeks, I've been training our newest additions to the team at UPS. I didn't allow the drivers to drive the first two days and on the third day I allowed one of the drivers to drive. He was nervous. It didn't go as smooth as I expected so after about an hour I took back control of the wheel and we finished our work for the day.
On the fourth day is when I decided to do things differently. I allowed the driver to drive the first half of the day. We didn't focus on speed. We focused on the methods instead. He drove for about 5 hours and, lo and behold, he started doing very well. He was less nervous and he was getting better at following the methods we use when driving.
It made me realize that the only way to truly improve at something is through doing it. Practice and repetition. This is something that I have heard others say and maybe even said so myself but it wasn't until this moment that I truly learned the lesson and incorporated it into my being.
If you want to improve...
What are you looking to get better at?
What skill are you interested in developing?
How are you going about developing that skill?
Are you actually improving?
If you want to improve something in your life or develop a skill, start by asking yourself those questions. We can learn something intellectually without actually being able to perform it in real life. There's only so much you can learn from reading, watching videos, and listening to someone else.
At some point, you need to get out of your comfort zone and learn by doing. It's going to involve practice, repetition, effort, and failure but if you want to learn to drive, you need to get behind the wheel.
Comments