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?
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?