2017 Fall October 12 Thursday

2017 Fall October 12 Thursday

57 degrees this morning, walk 34:36 minutes 

Coolish weather, but at least warmer than yesterday.

Pace was 19 seconds faster than my goal this morning.  Oddly enough I didn’t have any idea I was walking faster than I have in the past few days.

That happens, sometimes you don’t have any idea if you are doing good or bad until you suddenly realize (or are advised) how your are doing.  

That is where timely,  honest feedback, positive evaluation plays a real role in personal and professional growth and development.  You really don’t know how you are doing until someone advises you honestly.  

Of course there are limits on both sides.  Toastmasters has an evaluation  competent where speeches, meetings etc. are “evaluated” for how what was done right, what could be better and what shouldn’t be done etc.

It is difficult to not go too easy or too hard.  There is a middle ground where you won’t basically hurt performance by not pointing out areas for improvement but also you can go too far and just destroy someone with their “needs to improve” where they just give up and think they will never overcome their problems.

I personally have seen people come into Toastmasters who couldn’t even hardly stand up on their feet and introduce themselves become relatively  good speakers, so I know the process works. 

To a large degree, I think it is just doing it and having the opportunity to develop in front of a relatively non-judgemental  group, many of whom have been there and know what can be done.

Feedback and evaluation are a major part of development, if it is provided diplomatically and perhaps in relatively small doses.

I am reminded of my poetry instructor who said “every poem has a good poem in it”, it just needs to learn to speak correctly   (She didn’t use the term “learning to speak correctly, I kind of added that.)

As the semester proceeded, I saw what she meant.  

I never was quite sure what I was doing in a poetry class.  Much as I hate to admit it, I never learned to read poetry (at least stay awake wile I was doing so), and I never saw all of the meaning other people seemed to find.

I took a “short” poetry class (one of those community classes of six weeks or so) and while I never really was any good, I enjoyed the difference from my regular daily life.

I probably overstretched a little in taking a regular semester course (3 hours) of poetry, but fortunately the instructor was good and there was a variety of non-poets in the class who were just as talent challenged as I was.

Overall, I did publish a small book of my poems, and I had a lot of fun with it, but I never have written another poem, frankly I would  not have the confidence to write a poem, at least not without a skilled poet reviewing it!  

That's it for now, Thursday, October 12, 2017.