We’ve now reached the final yet ongoing stage in the School of Life: Continuing Education. I often hear my husband say a popular quote: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The proverbial “teacher” can be a person, a situation, a challenge, or even your own reflection. In this stage, growth doesn’t just come from learning new information, but also from recognizing familiar information at a higher, deeper level.
Growth in Continuing Education means taking every lesson you learned and “unlearned” from elementary through higher learning, and building on it to help you become the best version of yourself.
Life’s Pop Quizzes – The Awareness Audit
“Awareness Moments” don’t come on a schedule. They often show up in places and times when you least expect them. This is why you have to be intentional with understanding what is going on in both your heart and head.
The Awareness Audit allows you to do exactly that. When a situation occurs, ask yourself these three questions:
- What emotion showed up first?
- What belief did that emotion expose?
- What’s the lesson hiding in the reaction, not the situation?
Scenario:
You’re running late for work, and it feels like everything is against you. Someone cuts you off, you spill your coffee, and by the time you arrive, your nerves are bad, and your patience is gone.
- What emotion showed up first? Frustration, because you feel that everything is working against you.
- What belief did that emotion expose? “I don’t keep my peace when things don’t go smoothly. If I am not in control of certain situations, my day will not be good.”
- What’s the lesson hiding in the reaction, not the situation? Peace isn’t something you find when life is calm; it’s something you practice when it’s not. The traffic didn’t ruin your morning. It revealed that your calm still depends on feeling in control.
For more scenarios using the Awareness Audit, click here 👈🏾.
Stay Teachable – The Flexible Curriculum
Another aspect of continuing education is to make sure you always stay teachable. You may move beyond the early stages of growth, but learning does not have a finish line. Being teachable means being humble enough to say, “Maybe I don’t know everything yet, and maybe I can learn things from unexpected sources.”
Teaching is my niche. I have taught many things to many people over the years, but I’d be remiss not to acknowledge the students who have been my “teachers” too. If I had approached my students with the attitude that they are the only ones who can learn from me and not me from them, I would have missed out on some very important lessons that have shaped who I am today.
Here are three ways I stay open and ready to learn as I continue to grow.
- Revisit old lessons with new eyes. Go back to what you already know and ask what it means to you now. Example: What do boundaries mean to you now compared to five years ago?
- Keep asking better questions. Instead of “Why is this happening to me?” ask, “What is this showing me?”
- Surround yourself with people who challenge your growth. Choose a community that stretches your perspective without shaming you for where you are.
Extend Grace – The Retake Policy
In the School of Life, there are no “failing grades”, only feedback. When you make a mistake, that feedback helps you correct your course and move forward.
Giving yourself grace allows compassion to guide correction instead of criticism. I have experienced times when I have beaten myself up over mistakes. I’d tell myself, “Leeann! You should’ve known better!” but it never helped. It only made me sit longer in guilt.
I have learned to forgive myself and treat mistakes as study notes instead. Forgiveness doesn’t erase my accountability. It simply focuses my energy in the right direction so I can keep learning.
Never Stop Learning
“Autopilot” is a comfort zone that allows us to complete tasks quickly without spending too much mental energy and time on them. However, sometimes it is important to slow down and ask yourself, “Am I paying attention to what life is trying to teach me? Am I open to receiving new and familiar lessons at a higher level? Do I offer myself grace and kindness when I need to ‘retake’ a lesson?”
Take a moment to reflect on these things because in the School of Life, you never stop learning; you just keep growing in new ways with wisdom and grace. Take care of yourself. 🫶🏾
Check out the rest of The School of Life Series!
- The School of Life Part 1: Why You Keep Repeating the Same Lessons
- The School of Life Part 2: The Lessons That Shaped Us
- The School of Life Part 3: Higher Learning
