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According to MarketWatch, the Top News Searches and Stories on Yahoo! in 2011 were listed as follows:
1. Casey Anthony trial
2. The Royal Wedding
3. Death of Osama bin Laden
4. Japan earthquake and tsunami
5. Amanda Knox trial
6. Death of Amy Winehouse
7. Arab Spring
8. Libya/Ghadafi
9. Arizona shooting
10. Unemployment
These are the biggest stories that captured the attention of the world. They are only a small sampling of all that occurred over the course of a year. One thing I notice immediately about this list is most of the events are some sort of tragedy and crisis. We've experienced some difficult moments in 2011. The question is, what have we learned from these moments?
As we near the end of 2011, I would encourage you to make your own Top Ten list of significant personal events or experiences. Think back over the last twelve months and identify the different situations that influenced and shaped you into the person you are today.
Every experience, both good and bad, has the potential to teach you something about yourself. But experience alone doesn’t teach. It is only when you take the time to reflect on and evaluate your experiences that you’ll gain the most value from them. The ability to articulate and remember the lessons learned will greatly assist you when you encounter similar situations in the future.
Every year is full of good and bad experiences. Hopefully, the goal is to enter into the next year doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. In order for that to happen we must invest some energy into learning from those experiences. If we don't, we may be destined to make the same mistakes over and over.
This time of year is the perfect time to stop and reflect. Personal growth is not an automatic process. It takes intentional effort. One of the first steps is to learn from your past. Evaluate the experiences of 2011 before you start planning out your 2012.
To help you evaluate your year, I've provided some questions to get you started.
• What happened last year that I hope never happens again?
• What happened last year that I hope happens again?
• What are three things I can improve upon from this previous year?
• Which experiences from this past year would I handle differently given the chance?
• What mistakes did I make this year and what did I learn from them?
• What do I know now that I didn’t know a year ago?
Over the course of a year, everybody experiences both good and bad moments. I hope you will take the time to do more than most with your experiences. Reflection and evaluation are two ways one can turn experience into insight.
