You can't debrief yourself, but you need debriefing. Debriefing as an activity requires at least two people. One person to ask the questions and the other to answer. Life happens and then you make sense of it. You look in the rear view mirror of your life and draw conclusions.
One of the problems we face in this fast-forward culture of ours is that we don't stop enough to consider why things are the way they are and what part we may have had in making them that way.
That's why if we are to help others grow, especially if we intend to mentor them, we have to debrief them. We need to acquire the skills we need to conduct a good debrief.
So many young people are tossed and pummeled by life like a surfer slammed by a monster wave. And many of them are not going to have the equipment to reflect about what just happened. They are not going to ask the questions, "What just happened?" "What role did I play in that?" and "What would I do differently if I could?"
If they are to learn anything from life, they are going to probably need some help asking and answering these questions. Without this kind of help, they are going to be living Groundhog Day over and over again.
Most of what we learn in life, we learn experientially. We do stuff, we think about how we just did stuff, and then we draw conclusions about what we've done. We don't believe our way into new ways of acting, we act our way into new ways of believing.
There are a host of things that we've learned that fit in the category of "head knowledge." But we live our lives according to experience. And if you look at Jesus' ministry, he constantly used experience as a touchstone for learning.
Jesus taught by explaining concepts, modeling them, giving disciples opportunity to try stuff out for themselves, then debriefing the whole thing. All the question and answer sessions between Jesus and his disciples give us a picture into how they learned.
To make disciples as Jesus did, we must acquire his debriefing skills. When you look at the disciples returning from their Luke 10 short-term mission trip, Jesus debriefs them and helps them make sense of the experience.
Most days, with all the stresses of life, we could use a good debrief ourselves. Debriefing not only helps us disentangle the reasons for the stress, it helps us to live life on purpose.
For more on how to debrief, go here.
I like it. Forwarding to some families inked to Guatemala this summer.
I like this a lot. One of my old favourite books, M. Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Travelled,” talks about re-drawing your maps. You think life is a certain way because of your experiences and then something happens to change it. Many people clamp down and leave their map alone, not necessarily deliberately refusing to change it by what they have learned and seen, but just not making the choice to do so. Asking questions and debriefing can show you that you have a choice.
I make it a habit to re-draw my map. My knowledge is so limited and there are always new things to learn, new understanding to gain that help you move further the next time. Helping people to do that is an excellent thing and I applaud it. Good advice, Seth!
Excellent!
Appreciating every debrief, you, Karen and the leaders did for us! Now.. even more as I think about it all post-race with more of an objective eye. We love you!
Hey Jackie – we miss the debriefs! Proud of you, though, as you’re navigating your way in this next phase. Praying for you as you head to Mozambique!