It can take countless mistakes to recognize a pattern and a lifetime to break one.

Nevertheless, it’s good to regularly acknowledge that our pain is not in vain. Knowledge is actually power.

Here are a few hard-learned lessons I’ve meditated on recently:

1. When creating something worthwhile for yourself, don’t expect the road to be short or easy. Get used to walking in the unknown and having to ask for directions.

2. There's nothing wrong with hedging your bets. The right backup plan will provide you with the foundation you need to build the dream you really want. And when it's time to take the giant leap (with or without a parachute) your gut will tell you.

3. Keep your ego in the passenger seat, not behind the wheel. It has a place. It has a purpose. But if you let it win all the time, you'll never grow.

4. Accept people for who they are when they show you. If it's not what you hoped, you'll have to detach from your initial ideas and move forward with a new one, or else repeat the same disappointments again and again.

5. You can’t heal what you can’t feel. And no amount of spending, binging, smoking, or #self-care will keep you from your true emotions. Good, bad, or ugly, they’ll eventually catch up to you, and the longer you bury them the more drama they’ll cause when they show up.

I’ve been working on applying these notes to my life in the present tense and so far the benefits have been worth the challenge. Can you relate?