How to make your life experiences count

Your past experiences inform your way of life, thoughts, and feelings about every new situation you encounter. If you do not do the work to learn and grow from your painful experiences, you will keep experiencing unnecessary pain until you learn. Learning the lessons you need to discover are what make all your life experiences count. The following are ways to make your life experiences truly count: Learn from the past – Formally acknowledge the past lessons that you have learned from your experiences, be it your childhood or more recent experiences. A good way to do this is to keep a journal and write down the experience and the lessons that you learned from the experience. To reinforce what you discovered, share what you learned with a trusted friend. Who knows, you may even contribute something valuable for them to learn. Live in the present -- It may seem impossible, but once you have learned a past lesson you can let it go and live in the here and now. Some people call this being "mindful" or living "consciously". Essentially it means that you carefully focus on what you are experiencing now instead of placing too much emphasis on yesterday or tomorrow. This is a healthy way to live because you are not living in avoidance or fear. Rather you are living with the understanding that now is the only time in which you have control in life. This helps you appreciate the joy of each moment. Hope for the future -- Feeling hope for the future is a lot better than worrying about the future. If you are living in the now and have learned from your past, you are better able to experience hope for your future. When you are following your true purpose and aim, it’s easy to feel hopeful. Do not be guilty of sacrificing your future to your past. You have the ability within yourself to glean valuable lessons from the past that will enable you to base future actions on the experiences desire to get the results you want in life. By living in the now, you can do just that, and make each experience count.