Life is continually giving us lessons to help us grow and to teach us balance. Lessons in how to act or when not to act. Lessons in knowing when to speak boldly or to remain silent. Lessons about love, joy, gratitude, and grace. Lessons about stumbling, loss, fear, and regret.

Sometimes, we get these lessons over and over again.

Author and motivator, Iyanla Vanzant said, “Until you are willing to accept total and complete responsibility for every aspect of your life, your life will keep sending you experiences designed to get your attention.”

The end of that sentence is powerful. Life will keep sending you experiences designed to get your attention. Have you ever stopped to ponder why the same situations and problems keep cropping up in your world over and over again?

It could be you are not yet mastering the lessons you are meant to learn. It could be you are continuing to respond with the same ineffective thoughts, words, and actions you habitually default to. Perhaps your life is trying to get your attention, to teach you a better way.

Are you learning the lessons life is giving to you? If not, why not? Are you purposefully ignoring a problem that is in front of you, hoping it will magically go away? Are you secretly (or not so secretly) waiting for your white knight to gallop in and whisk you away to a better life? If so, you may be waiting a long time.

The good news is when you begin to recognize the lessons, life starts getting easier. Not because the situations have changed, but because you are able to respond in new and more effective ways. Awareness has power. And as speaker and coach Jason Goldberg says, “From awareness comes choice and from choice comes transformation.”