The shape of an honest reflection
Six lines of a reflection, out of order. Put them into the order that gets harder rather than easier.
- If I were less frightened of being wrong, I would have gone in the first year.
- I stayed in a job for three years after I knew it was over.
- What I have taken from it is that when I start building the case for staying, the case is already lost.
- What that sentence hides is that I did not know when I first knew — I had a feeling.
- I wish I had told somebody at the time, not for advice but to make it a fact.
- If I had left when I first knew, I would have lost some money and gained three years.
What a good five minutes sounds like
Three years too long
I stayed in a job for three years after I knew it was over. If I had left when I first knew, I would have lost about eleven thousand euros and gained three years.
That is the sentence I say. What it hides is that I did not know when I first knew. I had a feeling, and I have retrospectively promoted it into knowledge, because a feeling is not a reason to leave and knowledge is.
If I were less frightened of being wrong, I would have gone in the first year. That is the harder version, and it is about me rather than about the job.
I wish I had told somebody at the time. Not for advice — I would not have taken any — but because saying a thing out loud to another person converts it from a mood into a fact, and moods can be waited out.
What I have taken from it is small and portable. When I catch myself building the case for staying, the case is already lost. I do not build cases for things I want.
I would like to say that if it happened again I would be quicker. On current form I would be about eight months quicker, which is not nothing.
Three questions about how the reflection is built.
1. What does the second paragraph do to the first?
2. Why is If I were less frightened of being wrong called the harder version?
3. What does the last paragraph refuse to do?
Four moves
The reflection made four moves: the clean version of the regret · what that version hides · the harder conditional, whose condition is about you · what you have actually taken from it, stated small.
The second move is what separates reflection from complaint.
Eight phrases. Match each to the move it makes.
Two minutes of assembly
Six gaps. Each half is marked for its own time.
If I when I first knew, I three years. I I had told somebody at the time. If I less frightened of being wrong, I in the first year — and I a different job now.
Five sentences of the kind that appear when somebody is reflecting and monitoring at once.
1. If I would have left earlier, I would have saved three years.
2. I wish I would have told somebody.
3. If I had left in the first year, I would have been somewhere else now.
4. If I was less frightened, I would have gone. — in writing
5. I hope I had said something at the time.
The consequence, dragged into the present
How the twenty-six minutes run. Four minutes alone, twelve in pairs — six each way — eight for the last stage, and two to move.
Stage 1 · Alone · 4 minutes
Choose a decision that is still working on you. It does not have to be large; it has to be unfinished.
Four minutes. Write four sentences, one per square.
- Past → past: If I had…, I would have… — the clean version.
- Past → now: If I had…, I would be… — what would be different today.
- Now → past: If I were less / more…, I would have… — the version about you.
- The wish: one about then, one about now. They will not be the same.
Stage 2 · Pairs · 6 minutes each
Give the reflection. Your partner may say two things and no others.
Six minutes, four moves, and every past consequence pulled into the present at least once.
- Listener, question one: "and now?" — every time the speaker gives a result in the past.
- Listener, question two: "what does that hide?" — once, after the clean version.
- Speaker: answer by rebuilding the sentence, not by explaining. …and I would be somewhere else now.
- Listener: count how many times you had to ask the first question.
Stage 3 · The harder sentence · 8 minutes
Four minutes each. Propose the now → past sentence your partner did not say.
One sentence, offered carefully, and answered honestly.
- Build it from what they told you: If you were less…, you would have…
- Offer it as a question, not a diagnosis. They may reject it, and rejecting it is a real answer.
- Speaker: say whether you would sign it, and if not, produce the version you would.
- Finish by saying which of the two sentences you will still be thinking about tomorrow.
How often you were asked
Two questions.
1. How often did your partner have to say "and now?"
2. What happened when they proposed your now → past sentence?
Two questions did the work
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What does "and now?" force?
2. What kind of condition makes the hardest sentence?
Next. The errors this area actually produces — and why three of them are the same error wearing different clothes.