As you are no doubt winding down for the year, and perhaps pondering how your new year might be, I'd like to offer a gift that was given to me a few years ago from my mentor, teacher and friend Roger Deaner from Leadervision.

As a trainer, what kind of learner are you?  Sometimes being a trainer we we can be so busy critiquing the trainer or training that we forget to learn ourselves.  Or we fall into the same traps of learning that many of our participants do.

Think about the last few times you found yourself in the learner seat.   Did you fall into any of these traps of learning?
 

• Judgment – I already know this
• Passive Attitude – I don’t need to make an effort to learn this
• Inability to Relax – I have too much going on
• Inability to Play – I think learning should be serious
• Inflexibility – I can't try this
• Irrelevance – This is not useful for me

Next time you find yourself in a learning situation, adopt the attitudes of successful learners:
 

• Curiosity – Look at the world with a sense of awe or amazement
• Experimentation – How does this work?  How can it work best?
• Flexibility – Willingness to try different things