This weekend I was walking my sister-in-law’s dog when I saw this:

I suddenly remembered something: we live really close to Lake Washington. I really like living so close to this lake. On a clear day you can see Mt. Rainier off in the distance.

It made me start to wonder how many other things I really liked… and then forgot about.

I read a lot of professional magazines and articles about learning and development. I’ve been to a lot of training sessions and conferences. I exchange ideas with colleagues fairly frequently. I learn about a lot of cool ideas and concepts and models and theories.

And too often, I forget all about them. Perhaps it’s because I don’t bother putting these ideas and concepts and models and theories into use right away. Perhaps it’s because I shove these new learnings out of the way in order to learn something even newer and shinier.

What good is all this learning if I just forget about it within hours?

Over the next few weeks I plan to look back through all of the books I’ve read over the past year and scan them for things I’ve highlighted. I plan to look back through the training materials and workbooks from sessions I’ve attended over the past year. If I can get my ambition up a little, perhaps I’ll even look back through all the ideas and studies and articles I’ve “favorited” on Twitter in the past few months.

On June 30^th I will make a Mid-year Resolution to turn some of the things I’ve learned this year into specific actions and habits. After all, learning cool stuff and never using it is about as useful as living near a beautiful lake and forgetting all about it.

What have you learned over the past year that you thought might have been cool at the time, and then forgotten about (until you read this blog post)? Want to make a Mid-year Resolution with me?

Curious to know what my Mid-Year Resolution will be? Hit the FOLLOW button at the top of this page and my blog post for June 30^th will be sent right to your inbox.