Whatever your age, you’ve lived enough life to be able to reflect on your experience.  As you look back, you can name each period of your life. Some of us recall chronologically – teens, twenties and on.  Others think of life periods by their highlights and experiences – school years, dating years, engagement and first married years and on.  Some like to give name to their life chapters to feature the highlights – Falling In Love With Bill or My Starter Job At The Trib.

Much like a book, these life periods are your chapters, your chapters in life.  Each chapter is a group of years where there is something in common.  Why, you wonder, would you do that?  Before moving forward, it’s helpful to look back using your experience as a future guide.

As inspiration for your reflection, here’s the link to Stanley Kunitz’ poem about looking back before embarking on a new life chapter, The Layers.  Kunitz wrote The Layers when he was 80; at 95, he became U.S. poet laureate. 

Looking back.

For each of the chapters you’ve lived, consider the things that made that chapter unique.  Some chapters will be loaded with high points and a few challenges.  Other chapters may be heavily weighted by worry or problems.  

• For each of these chapters, name the best and worst aspects. 
• For each of these chapters, identify the origin of the good and the bad features. 
• For each of these chapters, name your greatest successes and your biggest mistakes. 
• For each of these chapters, what happened that you want to happen again in the future? 
• For each of these chapters, remind yourself of the aspects you don’t want repeated in your future. 
• Finally, ask yourself what didn’t happen in any of your chapters that you want in your life.

Looking ahead.

The wisdom you’ve gained through everyday living helps to inform the choices and decisions you will make in your future years.  With the high and low points, the positives and the negatives, the wins and losses of your life experience in mind, you are prepared for future planning. 

With your greatest successes in mind, recall the actions you took that made for success.  Have you repeated your successful actions?  How can you repeat your successful actions in your future years?  Name your most successful actions and use them in your future.  Naming things or assigning them an image is a great recall device.

With your biggest mistakes in mind, remember what you did that caused the mistake or failure.  Have you repeated the mistakes or failures?  Wonder what you can do to avoid making similar missteps.  As with your successes, name your failures in a way that helps you remember the actions you’d prefer not to repeat.  If your mistakes are the result of a habit you wish to change, visit Change in Your Life on this site.

Finally, list the things you want to repeat in the future, the things you’d like to avoid in the future and the things that haven’t yet happened that you want to experience.  Use these lists to help shape your plans for your future.

The life chapter’s you’ve lived shine a light on the life chapter’s you’ve yet to experience.   

For a deeper look at the life you’ve lived as you plan your future years, consider the downloadable or book/cd edition of Life Map, Gaining Perspective on Your Life.