Learn Your Lessons Well

What is Your Universe?
What are Your Limits?
Discover Yourself!

What is a Lesson?

When people tell you about learning lessons, what does that mean to you? How would you go about learning lessons if you do not have an understanding of what a lesson is, or what lessons are about? Why are lessons important?

“To Learn Life’s Lessons well, you must first understand the Universe around you.”

You will usually learn something about lessons when you begin school. Most teachers there will have a Lesson Plan, or a schedule of things they will be teaching you. Therefore, in this case, learning a lesson would be learning what your teacher is teaching you. For example, let’s say today the class is meant to learn the “times 2” numbers table. So the numbers table is explained to the class, examples given, then after being instructed on how to go about doing it, you, along with everyone else, get to recite it. The term “Learn your Lesson Well”, would be when you can demonstrate you know the table and what information it has; you have learned it well.

That is how it works in a structured plan.

Lessons in the Real World

When you go out into the world, you are on your own. The lessons in the real world have to do with your decisions, and the repercussions of your decisions. When you make a good decision, it generally will give a good feeling for a short amount of time. But, what happens when you make a bad decision. That gives you a different sensation. That other sensation is often called “pain”. Pain is the repercussion of making an incorrect decision. Pain can show up in many ways – physical pain, emotional pain, financial pain, etc.

Why do you think we are meant to feel pain when we make a wrong decision? If you sense pain as a result of your actions, you will likely think twice about doing it that way again, right? What if you forget about the pain you experienced the first time you made an incorrect decision? What do you think will happen if you make the same bad choice, again? Interestingly, the pain, as a result of your actions becomes bigger and more intense than the first time. Therefore, you keep abusing yourself more each time you make that same mistake. So, what will your next big mistake be when you are making decisions?

So, what you have just learned is when you make an error in your decisions, you will experience pain, until you “learn your lesson”. Also, if you are experiencing pain, there is likely a lesson attached to it. Look for the lesson. If you learn your lessons well, then you will be experiencing less pain on your journey than someone that does not understand lessons.

Your Universe around You

Look around you. You are literally the center of your Universe. It is your paradigm, your reality that you have created that interacts with the rest of the world. Your lessons deal with issues in your Universe and your reality. Therefore, those lessons are for you, and only you. Only you can really determine what they mean. Ultimately, you are the person that must deal with your lessons. Other people have their lessons they are responsible for. You have yours that you are responsible for as well. As your journey unfolds before you, you discover yourself and what you are doing here in this world. You also begin to understand the complex nature of your Universe. By understanding your Universe, you can glean much more information from your lessons.

By stepping forth and embracing your Universe, you are finding yourself and gaining an understanding as to what your lessons mean for you.

Good Luck, enjoy life, and Learn your lessons well!

Shannon Panzo

Great Things Happen Here!

Understanding Success, Failure, and Lessons in Self Improvement

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Success, Failure, and Lessons in Self Improvement

“Wherever you are, that is where you are meant to be, experiencing the things you were meant to experience.”

A client recently contacted me asking about test taking. His main concern was that he did not want to fail a certain test. During the conversation, I gave him strategies as to how to go about taking tests without getting stressed out. This would give him the upper hand in taking any tests.

Failure and Lessons

We got back to the main issue of not failing. He asked, “But what if I fail?” I answered him, “You are likely to learn more out of anything that you fail than learn from passing.” It makes sense. You will learn many lessons when you fail at something. But if you pass that event, you have no reason to look for your lessons.

Everything that happens to us happens for a purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and how failure leads to success, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self improvement and true meaning of success.

Patch Adams

I remember watching “Patch Adams” – a movie. It really shows you something about improving yourself. Hunter “Patch” Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts – he decided to seek medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself in a psychiatric ward. His months of stay in the hospital led him to meeting different kinds of people. Sick people in that matter. He met a catatonic, a mentally handicapped person, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he has to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure to success and pains he has gone through, he still want to become a doctor. His positive attitude brought him self-improvement and what is success in life. He didn’t only improve himself, but also the life of the people around him and their quality of life. Did he succeed? Needless to say, as the story goes, he became the best doctor America has ever known.

So, when does self improvement become success synonym? Where do we start? Here are some tips:

*Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure, because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?

*When you see hunks and models on TV, think more on free self improvement tips, not self pitying. Those people were selected to project a certain image. Self acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.

*When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.

*The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a science quiz. There’s always a next time. Make room for self improvement.

*Take things one at a time. You don’t expect a black sheep to become a goody-two-shoes in just a snap of a finger. Self improvement is a one day at a time process.

*Self improvement results in inner stability, personality development and keys to SUCCESS at work. It comes from self confidence, self appreciation and self esteem.

* Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of Cameron Diaz or Ralph Fiennes. It aims at achieving results to an improved and better YOU.

*Appreciate others. Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying “hi” or “hello”, greeting someone “good day” or telling Mr. Smith something like “hey, I love your tie!” are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we are being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.

*When you are willing to accept change and go through the process of self improvement online, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people have different values and attitudes. Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, she would most likely decline an invitation for self improvement. (Be careful with this one. The other person may think you value them less unless they participate. This can precipitate many undesired results.)

Appreciate Where You are in Life

Very few people can be truly labelled as ‘over-night successes’. Either, they are just lucky, or they have been leading up to that moment with often years of working in the same area. It’s a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, officemates, neighbours, etc… they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self improvement, we increase our opportunities for success.

“There really are no failures in life; only lessons to be learned.”