An excellent skill and habit to develop is how to turn your experiences into something valuable for others and enriching for you.

This isn’t about how to take more photos of your nature hike to show off on social media; if anything, I think you should do less of that and just enjoy the clouds and trees and stuff. But when you do things in your career or education, your community, or even serious hobbies, learning to make a good “after-action report” is very valuable!

I see it all the time. People in a particular industry go to a conference or trade show of their own accord. If I ask them why they’re going, they say to learn, to network, to advance their careers, etc. Then they don’t really do any of those things!

They attend. But learning is very active. If you aren’t taking notes, practicing the skill, or rephrasing it to teach to others, your learning is very limited. Networking is very intentional; it doesn’t happen just because you show up, it happens because you find ways to make deliberate and meaningful connections with people who share your goals, interests, or talents. And what good does a conference do for your career if you don’t actually learn, don’t actually network – and nobody knows you went?

Give yourself the assignment. Imagine your boss said, “Hey, I want you to attend this conference and return with as much new information and as many new contacts as you can for the whole team. I want a report from you after the conference detailing what you’ve picked up and how you intend to teach it to the rest of the team, make introductions and set up meetings, and overall advance our strategic goals.” If you knew that was part of your job, you’d approach it very differently!

So do that. Are you a hobbyist painter who regularly shows off your work at small galleries? Write an after-action report, complete with pictures from the event! Are you doing a summer internship as part of your degree program? After-action report with a contact list and schedule of follow-up outreach!

You don’t have to show these to anyone; simply doing them for yourself will wonderfully enhance the value you gain from the endeavor. But of course, these also make great conversation starters. If you’re applying for your first job after college, saying “I had a summer internship” is pretty lacking as a compelling reason to hire you. But full details of the experience you gained, contacts you made, and problems you overcame? Maybe even a sample of the kind of work you did? Now you’re making your own credentials!

“But Johnny, in my summer internship/volunteer day/industry trade show I didn’t do anything worth writing about!” Yeah, because you didn’t go in knowing that you were going to have to! That’s why it’s such a good skill and habit: Even knowing that you’re going to hold yourself to it makes you take the whole thing more seriously, strive to do more, get more out of it. It provides wonderful clarity of purpose.

The next time you’re doing something like this, write up a little draft of your report first. Give the sections titles, like “People worth following up with” and “Skills to put into practice,” things like that. Have a good, clear reason about why you’re really doing it. And then use the report itself to talk to more people, and open up even more opportunities.

You know, instead of posting pictures of trees from your camping trip. Just enjoy the sunshine!

Whenever someone on your team is “going along to get along,” they likely have one foot out the door.

People who are invested in something will have critiques. They’ll have input, because they care. They want the world they’re in to fit them better, because they intend to stay. If you’re making complex vacation plans with a group of friends, and one of them just says “sure, whatever” to every element, do you think they’re extremely committed to the vacation? Heck no, they’re probably already planning to flake.

Consider that whenever you get mildly frustrated by someone’s “complaining.” As long as they’re being respectful and collaborative, what they’re doing isn’t complaining – it’s investing. They’re putting their effort into the project, because they want to see it through. It’s a sign of commitment, and you should be grateful for it.

“It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.”

…sometimes.

The thing is, your whole life is one big journey made of many, many smaller ones. You have finite time to enjoy upon this world. So sometimes it makes sense to get to a destination a little faster, if it opens more time for more enjoyable journeys!

It’s not the “journey” of doing your laundry that’s important, it’s clean laundry. If you can find a faster way to do that so you can have more fun on a hike with your kids, do it!

When a big, positive change happens, it can crowd out even other positive things. Say you start a new job or move to your dream city. Even though these are positive changes, they may make it hard for you to continue the healthy habits you’ve formed. The new job’s schedule might disrupt your workout routine, or moving to a new city limits the amount of time you once spent with close friends.

This is okay! That’s life – but what’s important is that you don’t ignore it. Don’t let bad habits creep in to fill the cracks in your life. Take the time to rebuild the scaffolding, being intentional about how you adjust your life to accommodate the new exciting change. It can be overwhelming at first, but worth every second of investment.

One of the kindest things you can offer is cheerful respect of someone else’s boundaries.

Be kind to yourself too.

If you want quality time with someone, spend lots of time with them. Not only will some of that time be quality, but the investment of hours is what leads to the connection.

No matter what you want “quality over quantity” of, it rarely works that way. Getting quality is work. Worthy work, but work. But in the hours, and reap the best ones.

When you hear a criticism, what you’re really hearing is an admission. The person is telling you what affects them, what concerns them, what they feel emotionally bothered by. They’re telling you what affects them. Remember what they say, but also remember what it means.

When I say that something is an important responsibility, that isn’t me telling you that I think you should do it and you’re somehow a failure if you don’t. That’s me saying to you: “This thing is important, so if you need help with it, I am very willing to share that burden with you.”

It’s easy to admonish others for what they should do while you stand on the sidelines of their life. But a principle I hold dearly in my heart is that I can’t give anyone flak for anything I’m unwilling to help with.

When we hear someone tell us that we should be doing something that we’re not, it’s easy to interpret that as judgment and admonishment – because for most people, that’s exactly what it is. But not from me. I may forget to say the words, “So how can I help?” But that’s what I mean.

Sometimes major plans in your life will change. You’ll need to adapt to discomfort in order to preserve what truly matters. Pay attention to who supports you during these times. That information is worth its weight in gold.

The best reason to try new things when things are going well is that you can try weird things.

As an example: Most people don’t look for or apply to a new job until they’re forced to. But when you’re desperate, you play it safe because you don’t want to risk your opportunities. But this can close you off from the very best opportunities out there, and the best ways to win them!

When you’re not desperate, you have the security to try unusual approaches or bold moves. And that’s how you discover all sorts of amazing things!

So, pick an area of your life that’s going well right now, and use that safety to try something new, something different – something weird!