Something that’s been bothering me lately is that I don’t trust my memory nearly as much as I used to.
I can usually remember whether I felt excited or disappointed about something, but when I try to remember whether a decision actually turned out to be good, things get fuzzier.
I bought things that I was convinced would change my life and six months later barely used them. I’ve avoided opportunities that I later wished I’d taken. I’ve also had plenty of decisions that felt questionable at the time but quietly turned out to be good.
The strange thing is that when I look back, I tend to remember the story I tell myself about those decisions more than the outcomes themselves.
People talk a lot about learning from experience, but I wonder how much actual learning is happening if our memories are constantly rewriting the past.
Years ago I kept a journal, but it mostly captured what I was thinking at the time. What I really wanted was something that forced me to revisit decisions later and compare expectations against reality.
I’ve been experimenting with that idea for my own use with a small project:
I’m not really asking about the software. I’m more curious whether other people have run into this problem. Has anyone found that their memory of a decision and the reality of the outcome drift apart more than they expected?
Do we learn less from our decisions than we think we do?
Something that’s been bothering me lately is that I don’t trust my memory nearly as much as I used to.
I can usually remember whether I felt excited or disappointed about something, but when I try to remember whether a decision actually turned out to be good, things get fuzzier.
I bought things that I was convinced would change my life and six months later barely used them. I’ve avoided opportunities that I later wished I’d taken. I’ve also had plenty of decisions that felt questionable at the time but quietly turned out to be good.
The strange thing is that when I look back, I tend to remember the story I tell myself about those decisions more than the outcomes themselves.
People talk a lot about learning from experience, but I wonder how much actual learning is happening if our memories are constantly rewriting the past.
Years ago I kept a journal, but it mostly captured what I was thinking at the time. What I really wanted was something that forced me to revisit decisions later and compare expectations against reality.
I’ve been experimenting with that idea for my own use with a small project:
https://outcomeclarity.com/onboard.html
I’m not really asking about the software. I’m more curious whether other people have run into this problem. Has anyone found that their memory of a decision and the reality of the outcome drift apart more than they expected?