Failure or success, all experiences have lessons embedded in them that you can, and should be cultivating and embracing. Following are four ways you can more easily excavate those lessons.

  1. Take time to THINK about it. When we move too quickly from one experience to the next, we bypass any opportunity to appreciate the lessons it can teach us. Take some time to process the experience and what it meant to you.
  2. Ask yourself questions and ANSWER THEM HONESTLY. If we can ask ourselves deliberate questions and answer them honestly, then we give ourselves plenty of information to use for growth. We have a better idea of how we operate, what we like and don’t like – identifying areas we can strengthen. Ask yourself questions like: What challenged me about this experience? Why? What did I like about it? What did I dislike? Why? Was there any part of it that I wish I would have handled differently? Why?
  3. Ask others for input and ACCEPT IT. Ask others how they felt you handled the experience. Don’t get defensive if they offer criticism or suggestions for improvement. If they don’t offer suggestions for improvement, ask for some.
  4. ALLOW YOURSELF to learn. Give yourself PERMISSION to learn. Sometimes we fear learning because it means something new and different or we are afraid of what we might learn about ourselves, or what we will be asking ourselves to admit. Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission – permission to admit areas in which we can grow and to acknowledge that there will be a lesson in every experience if we remain open to it.

Every experience has value built into it – lessons we can learn. If we can embrace those lessons then experiences become learning opportunities. We can change our perception of a negative experience and instead of wanting to forget it and bury it, we start to want to learn the lessons from it because we know the value that will bring us.