Sometimes we get so stuck in our daily life that we cannot see our own growth. Especially if we feel like the current moment is a struggle. It’s easy to become hard on ourselves and believe we always end up in difficulties. It can feel like every extra struggle just means life is hard and that we’ll find challenges in everything.

It can lead us to spiral into an energy of doubt and low self-esteem. Doubting our capabilities, questioning our strengths and zoning in on our weaknesses.

These moments can feel like an endless battle. But the reality is, if we’re consistently facing new challenges, it can be a good thing. To realise this though, we need to look back at every challenge we’ve faced and reflect on it. Even if we think we failed to get through it. Why? Because there’s a chance there was something essential within the challenge that we’ve taken away with us, something we’ve stored in our subconscious to help us face new challenges. And each time we come close to a similar challenge, we recall this information to help us overcome it.

Reflecting on past difficulties can be uncomfortable – it means re-exposing ourselves to memories and feelings we would prefer to ignore.

But we don’t need to bury our failures.

We need to view them as a training ground.

The place that exposed us to every weakness we have and may need to address.

With every challenge, we face the same weaknesses that need to be worked on.

And each time we overcome difficulties, we reach a new level to discover more about ourselves. Another thing for us to conquer.

The more we face, the more we learn, and the more we can correct and shape ourselves.

If we pay attention to this pattern each time we step into a new challenge, we are already more aware of how we can use it to grow. We’re aware of what weaknesses there are, and we can focus on overcoming them. Because this time around, we’re ready to face them. We no longer want them to defeat us, so we overcome them and rise above. It means we no longer become overpowered by our perceived weaknesses, and instead we choose to hone in.

This will happen each time we challenge ourselves and move to a new level. But only if we develop awareness through reflection. By reflecting, non-judgmentally, and objectively, we discover the purpose of the challenge and everything we need to learn from it.

It’s possible to choose to accept life being hard, see challenges as difficulties with no gain at all, just another failure to be forgotten. But there’s something about hard times that always comes back to find you. Like an ‘aha’ moment, when it all makes sense. We realise something we experienced years ago is helping us right now and is essential to us. We start to see all our past challenges as stepping-stones that helped us to grow and become.

Instead of looking at our current moments as another struggle and difficulty, we should consider what we’ve overcome already, what it taught us, who we became afterwards, and how it could be helping us right now, in a new challenge.

Reflection is healing because it helps us to see how far we’ve come. It helps us to recognise what we’ve learned from every past struggle and notice how it is aiding us now.

The lessons from hardships are blessings, but we need to reflect in order to reap them.

Reflect on your past challenges