“Experience is a hard teacher, it often gives the test first and the lesson later.” I don’t remember who said this, but I believe that there is a lot of truth to this statement. Experience is something that we start gaining very young and never stop gaining until we leave this world. Every experience should be followed by a time of reflection, what did this experience teach me? What can I learn from this experience? What must I change in light of this experience? What went well in this experience. Experiences without reflection is much like sleeping in the car, you survived the drive, but you missed all the sights along the way.

Our experiences probably lend more to our personal and personality development more than anything else. By looking back on our experiences and reflecting on the lessons taught and the lessons learned, we start to see if these experiences have helped to mold us into the person that we strive to be. Life teaches some very intense and interesting lessons, we need to both learn and be taught to gain the value in them.

What are your top three lessons that life has taught you so far?

1.____________________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________________

Now ask yourself, how have these lessons helped to form me into the unique individual that I am?

Experiences will often times lead to a discovery of your purpose in life, who you are meant to be. Other times it can help you to decide what you don’t want to be also. Is how you are living today, in alignment with how you want to be living in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years from now? Let’s see if we can align some of our goals with our experiences and see if we can determine what more we may need to experience, either actually or in terms of gaining knowledge to get us to where we want to be.

Where I am today ______________________________________________________________

Where I want to be in 3 years______________________________________________________

In 5 years______________________________________________________________________

In 10 years____________________________________________________________________

What experiences have gotten me to where I am today?

 

What experiences do I feel I need to get me to where I want to be in the future?

 

Experiences are going to happen whether you want them to or not, so be ready to face them head on and find the good in them, seek the lessons that they can teach, and be ready for them to be enjoyable, memorable, and even exciting. Fred Devito is quoted as saying, “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”