Heat Seeking Missiles ...

This is a story of ‘learning’ … and how we ‘learn’.

Think of how an old ‘heat seeking missile’ works … it’s flight path from from launch to target is anything but a straight line. After launch - the missiles technology starts looking for a heat signature from it’s target - it then orients itself toward this heat signature and then keeps asking a simple question ‘warmer or colder?’. We all played this same game as kids - probably with a blindfold on - ‘warmer or colder?’ Then after a series of ever and ever smaller course corrections we ‘zero in’ on our intended target. I think this is a very good analogy of how we go about learning new skills … we try, we fail, we try again and we eventually ‘zero in’ on the skills we want or need.

The main point is this - COURSE CORRECTIONS are vital to this whole ‘zeroing in’ process. As we ‘correct’ our course, we can often ‘over correct’ - and this is neither bad nor good, it is just a natural part of the process. Over time, as we gather experience, our course corrections tend to be smaller and smaller - this ‘from the outside’ looks like we are ‘lucky’, ‘gifted’, ‘talented’, etc. Over time, we have eliminated the directions that don’t work well for us … and we zero in on the direction that does give us the lifestyle or outcomes that we want. Course corrections, just like those our heat-seeking missile makes are exactly what we need to achieve in life. Heat seeking missiles do not fly in a straight line from launch to the target - and neither do we. 

JBW