It's not my fault!

Many years ago, I interviewed a rather interesting candidate. Very interesting, actually. And for very simple reasons.

He was applying for a sales position at a sports store, and I happened to take part in the selection process. We were used to receiving many candidates with prior experience and no current job, and we obviously asked him the reason for leaving his/her past job.

Answers varied enormously, but I can remember some popular ones:

·         The department was cutting expenses and some employees were fired;

·         The manager didn’t really like me;

·         It was a temporary job;

What do all these answers have in common? It was never the candidate’s fault.

Then this one candidate told me something like this: “I wasn’t really producing much. It was not my favourite job, so I guess I didn’t put enough effort into it. They noticed it, and they fired me”.

He really caught my attention and he got the job, and the decision of hiring him was based on his honest response.

The result? Not much. He wasn’t the best salesperson we had, nor the best employee. He was ok. He wasn’t fired, but not long after he quit this job. His salary wasn’t really attractive based on his numbers.

I think he probably didn’t really like the job once again. He was probably looking for some interesting job where he could invest his attention in. Or maybe he was the kind of a person who doesn’t really like any kind of jobs. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’d probably hire him again. This time I’d probably ask him what kind of job would please him before making the decision, though.

But the point is that this kind of self-awareness and attitude to take responsibility for what happens in one’s life is quite rare, in my opinion. It’s always so much easier to put the blame on the boss when you get fired, on the salesperson when you buy something you don’t really want, or on your partner when things start to go wrong. It is also easier to blame your teacher when you don’t learn.

The reason why I’m writing this post is to highlight how important self-awareness is for a learner.  Knowing what works best for you, what interests you, what to do to learn quicker, what to change when something is not working.

There are all kinds of teachers, schools and methodologies out there. At least one might work for you, and even if you think it doesn’t, you can still find creative ways to make it effective. I’m not trying to take the responsibility away from the teacher. I’d be out of business if I convinced people of that. But being collaboratively responsible for your learning will definitely take you further. So in my opinion, self-evaluation is a good start.