An Intervention that doesn't "work out" is an Assessment

I thought I'd start noting some tidbits of wisdom and thoughts from my placement experience. I had the intention of doing this during my last placement, but I never found the time to follow through with it. So I'm buckling down to write some of this tidbits down from this placement.

"An intervention that doesn't work out is an assessment": something wise that my current placement preceptor told me during the first two weeks of placement. I think it applies to any clinical setting and population that OTs work with, but especially applicable to children and their families. If we can see "failed" interventions as an assessment, then we will putting ourselves in a mindset that is ready to learn from our clients! Better yet, we should carry this experimental mindset with each intervention plan. If we put aside our own agendas and idealized results, there will be more possibilities available for our clients.

I'm starting to extrapolate these little tidbits from placement (and my overall Masters education experience) into everyday life. Rather than seeing past mistakes as failures to "live down" (often not for others to forget, but self-forgiveness), we can see them as an experience to learn from. Everything happens for a reason, but it's hard to see the reasons when we're just focusing on the fact that things didn't happen the way we had hoped. Counting the number of times things didn't work out would simply get myself into measuring them against my successes, while sitting down and viewing the experience as one of many trials will actually get me to think of the Hows and the Whys. The former perspective isn't constructive, with its narrow and negative focus often leading into downward spiral thinking, and the latter is more open minded and accepting of these faults.

This leads me to think of Rule #6 from The Art of Possibility by Zander and Zander. A light and easy to follow self-help book that I'd highly recommend! Rule #6 is definitely one of the practices from that book that I'm really trying to keep in mind to make the most of and feel good about my placement experience and Life in general. =)