When we wake up each morning, oftentimes we stumble out of our beds, hurriedly get ourselves ready for work, grab a quick breakfast (if we have a moment to spare), and then rush off to our jobs. But, what if we could approach the day more mindfully? What if we took a few minutes each morning to set our intentions for the day, work on some deep breathing exercises, tell ourselves positive affirmations, and center ourselves for the day ahead?

Indeed, most people don’t take the time to evaluate their emotions and work on self-care. As a result, their lives seem to control them rather than the other way around. We all deal with similar challenges and issues in life. But if we just asked ourselves one question before our daily routines begin, we can allow for more peace and abundance to flow through us.

The ONE Question You Need To Ask Yourself Every Morning

Of course, you will probably want to preface this question with quiet meditation or yoga, just to get your mind centered and focused first. After you have silenced the chatter in your mind and you feel ready, ask yourself this simple question:

What can I learn from today? 

You might ask, “What will this really do for me?” Well, before you get bombarded with life’s craziness for the day, you will have already set the intention that you want to learn something from the experiences you encounter. You will have told the universe that you want to become an active participant in your life rather than just allowing it to control you like a puppet.

You will set the intention that you wish for the universe to send you people and events that will challenge you to push past barriers in your mind. Consequently, you learn important lessons.

We all have things we could work on within us. Maybe some of us struggle with feeling comfortable in conversations with people. Others battle addictions, and still others long to find their life purpose. Even if you have conquered the demons within you, you probably still have something you wish to learn from this life.

Until the day our souls leave our bodies, we all are a work in progress. Each day, we can decide to become better than we were the day before, or spiral backwards into bad habits. We can make a conscious choice to continue growing, aspiring, learning, and opening our hearts. Therefore, we can decide to learn all we can from every experience.

Instead of attempting to butt in and dictate what will happen, allow life to simply flow. Become both the active participant and the observer. Let go and push past your self-imposed limitations, but also, remember that life is our greatest teacher. You can still surrender to life while participating in it fully; in fact, once you learn to just show up and see what happens, you say to life “I no longer want to fight you; I want to embrace you, and learn from your lessons, both difficult and easy.”

None of us knows everything about life, and most of us wouldn’t want to, anyway. So you might say, “Well what’s the point of learning anything new if we all know nothing in the end?” A very valid question, indeed. However, I think we can all agree that if we lived from a place of love and understanding, this world would become a much brighter place. So, if you take anything from this life, learn to crack open your heart and allow love to leave and enter uninhibited.

This doesn’t require any sort of critical thinking or complex formula; love represents our natural state of being, before we become indoctrinated into society and programmed with messages of hate and violence. If you set your intention to learn whatever you can from today, remember that behind every lesson, love exists. Everything that life sends your way exists in order to make you love more than you could ever imagine.

Question Your Openness to Change

If you become receptive to life’s lessons, and accept them without jumping in and trying to change the situation, you can begin to open all the locked doors inside your heart.

We all want to become more free, loving, and open, but it begins with ourselves. You can’t control life; if you try to, you will only exhaust yourself. Focus on learning to control your breath, your thoughts, and your intentions, instead. Take charge of what you wish to learn in this life, and commit to absorbing the knowledge.

In this very moment, you can control how you wish to see life. You can see it as a continuous cycle of anguish and unfairness. On the other hand,  you can view it as a constant and overflowing stream of knowledge and an opportunity for incredible growth.

You get to decide, but posing the question “What can I learn from today?” will always give you the answers you need to move forward. You just have to choose what you will do with these answers. Will you ignore them and continue allowing life to control you? Or will you take charge and incorporate these lessons into creating a more meaningful, empowering life?

Remember, you are writing your story every day, either consciously or unconsciously. So, all you have to do, is own the pen.