A couple of weeks back I was speaking with an entrepreneur who shared with me that she got involved in a personal issue with her client that she should have stayed out of. At that time she felt it was harmless to get involved in the conversation but later the whole thing played out unpleasantly. 

I shared with her that it is best not to get involved in people’s personal matters unless there are good terms of understanding between both parties. She realized the wisdom of this and then remarked to me “well, lesson learnt!”

I replied, “No, lesson noted not learnt. Lesson is learnt only when the same mistake is not repeated again.”

It’s important to know when you’ve only noted your lesson and when you have learnt from it. You’ll find that most people often say “lesson learnt” but what they should really be saying is “lesson noted”. 

When do we learn from our experiences?

We prove we have learnt from our experiences when a similar opportunity comes up again in the future and this time we make a wiser choice based on the lesson that was noted in the first experience. Then and only then have we learnt from our experiences. 

Most people do not look at experiences in life as opportunities to learn from and improve oneself. Why? Mainly because most people do not make it a priority in their life to improve themselves. 

When personal unfoldment is a priority in your life, a major priority in your life, then every experience is an opportunity to learn from. 

Your ability to be present in your experiences throughout the day (which results from your ability to concentrate) will allow you to see the lessons that you can take away from each of those experiences. You are now in a state of perpetual growth. But you must have a good ability to concentrate in order to do so.

It also requires humility.  Another quality a lot of people struggle with. A topic for another day.

Be observant of how many times you have to note the same lesson before you finally learn from it. For many years, I had to note most lessons three to four times before I learnt from it. That was what I observed in me. Some experiences I have yet to learn from…sigh!

The ideal, and I say again, the ideal, is to have an experience just once and learn from it. 

There is a greater ideal. A more mystical ideal, and that is to learn from an experience that someone else is having. To observe someone go through an experience, note and learn the lesson by purely observing, and have the ability then to cause that learning to create a shift in the way you lead your life.