Kolb Helps in managing Heartbreak

Concrete Experience

In my work place, when they were promoting many employees, they passed me over. It broke my heart but being me, I had decided not to ask for anything but opt for lateral growth and work with many teams. Then my coach told me that one needs to ask for what wants in corporate life. And I went by her suggestion, ignoring my feelings, and did that and found that I was refused on account of my behaviour or inability to work in a team. This shattered me on two fold manner. One was to be refused and other was to ask for it and refused, which has hurt my self esteem a lot.

Reflective Observations

I wonder why I do not listen to myself and exteriorize my decision making. That makes me even angrier. So now I am angry with myself for asking, angry with management for refusing and angry with myself for not listening to myself. That is a lot of emotions to process. And there lies the answer. Too many emotions to process!

Abstract Conceptualization

I learnt as the last sentence conveys that these are too many emotions to process and I can’t possibly do anything by metalizing them or thinking about them. Along with the office situation, there is as a back up my liking my boss a little which adds to the emotional mush and covid restrictions that do not allow me to travel.

Application

Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience (Mcleod, 2017). My experiences are a reflection of the transformative journey that I am on and where do I need to be. The Multiple Intelligence Test that I have taken (MI Quiz - CAREERinsite. Multiple Intlligences, 2021) gives an indication of what I can do. My strength is my intrapersonal intelligence. Hence I need to cultivate some time for myself. My strength used to be verbal intelligence and that has gone down. I need to cultivate it by reading and writing. Writing reflective pieces such as this one help. So maybe next term I will opt for two courses so I can do a lot of writing. Math is my mainstay, so let us learn more about it. However I need to keep working on interpersonal skills also and if office is not giving the space, I can go somewhere with friends. I constantly feel the need for validation. Instead of expecting it from colleagues or others, I can give it to myself by engaging in tasks that I feel good about, such as cooking a simple meal.

I do wonder though why I keep coming back again and again to the same point and that is to care for self, to be mindful of being kind to self. The days I do that, it gives me the energy to be kind to others. But the harshness of the lesson continues.



References

1. Mcleod, S. (2017). Kolb's Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle. Kolb's Learning Styles and Experiential Learning Cycle | Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html

2. MI Quiz - CAREERinsite. Multiple Intlligences. (2021). https://alis.alberta.ca/careerinsite/know-yourself/multiple-intelligences-quiz/