Mistakes as Learning Experiences

If there’s one thing that unites us all, it’s that we all suffer. We all triumph. We face obstacles in our lives and encounter things that throw us off our course and challenge our inner strength. That’s life, with the lesson often seen in retrospect. Without the difficult times, there would be no great times. Everything would just seem flat and uneventful, plain and boring.

There would be no impactful change without struggle. The beauty of life is overcoming what we think we cannot. Our self-esteem grows and we find strength in ourselves that we never knew existed.

This very point had me thinking about various struggles that I’ve been through in my life. I remember focusing mostly on the negative aspects of the situation. How badly I felt, how crappy the situation was, and how much I didn’t think things would ever change. Blah, blah, blah. It’s a vicious cycle.

But what if we focus on how our struggles change us and our lives for the better?

Would it be possible to improve negative situations, if we thought about how we might benefit from them?

When I was unhappy with myself, all I could think about was how much I screwed up my life. So many days I would curse myself for making some silly mistakes in life. Any all these negative situations and laments is just creating in me more negativity like sorrow, anger (if you truly know me, you'd see that a lot on my BBM PMs). But a fine young lady told me, "why not concentrate on what you could benefit from the negative than just lamenting about how bad it is? If I were u, I won't let people know what's going on in ma life at all".

That’s when I realized that I could rot in my own negativity or I could see things in a different light. Instead of cursing myself and “mistakes” , I’d rather call them “learning experiences”. I took time to appreciate God, family, friends and myself more because I have life to still make things right, I have God who is there for me and I have wonderful family and friends who's got me.

Most surprisingly of all, I now see struggles in a new light. Instead of cursing an uncomfortable time, I see it as a message to change. Whether I listen or not is up to me.

So as we start this week, let's concentrate on the lessons or positives we can derive from every negative circumstance. Take every negative situation as life teaching us a lesson. And no matter what you face this week, do not forget to wear your pretty smile and worry not about negative but the positive you should make out of it.

Have a blessed week guys.