Experience has taught me to let these words guide me. The experience of frustration, mental and physical fatigue, failure and so much more.

It wasn’t just about what I experienced through doing, but also what I failed to experience or allow others to experience by defaulting into doing.

To illustrate, let’s consider an example related to work and leadership.

When you’re a business leader, you are often looked to for the answers and quite frankly for permission by your teams. There’s a reason for this; you have probably in one form, or another done the work they are responsible for now. Or within the company hierarchy, you hold ultimate accountability for the result (positive or not).

So, when faced with a less experienced employee, you think it’s easier, quicker or even helpful to provide the answers for the sake of efficiency or perhaps to lessen the risk of failure. Having been there, done that and bought the T-shirt, I want to pass on some hard-earned wisdom.

While you’re making all the decisions or doing the work, you are filling your time with work that could be done by someone else and depriving yourself of the time and space to develop yourself and the business in a new way. What’s more, you are depriving your team members of golden opportunities to learn.

Experiential learning is a gift. It’s an opportunity to learn technical skills, problem solving, creativity, perseverance and grit. It’s an opportunity for someone to feel insecure and do it anyway, fail and get up again, succeed and grow in confidence. If you are always there to make the decisions or do the work, how will your team ever grow beyond their current capabilities? How will your business grow?

If you’re spending a large proportion of your time on things you already know, how will you grow? How will you practice courage, creativity, perseverance and grit in the face of a new challenge?

So, the next time you’re about to go into default mode, think about it. Will it help you, your team or your company grow?