One of the earliest and most impactful quotes I ever heard on my personal development journey was this:
“The wise man learns from the mistakes of others”
~ Otto von Bismarck
This concept of being able to shortcut and exponentially improve my life by applying lessons from others deeply fascinated me from a VERY young age.
I’m talking maybe middle school years?
Why?
Because I was a socially awkward, outcast in school.
I think I struggled in nearly everything a school kid could, except actual school. In true 80s/90s outcast fashion I was a nerd.
- Grades: A+
- Social Life: F
Unsurprisingly, being smart doesn’t get you that far in school. Or in life, really.
Not when you have no social skills, struggle to fit in and make friends, have no confidence, don’t know how to dress, are insecure, can’t hold (or even start) a conversation, and are basically clueless when it comes to general life skills.
Side note: Clueless is actually one of my all-time fave movies! As a nerdy teen, I so wanted to be popular , well-dressed, and confident like Cher and her friends!
And so one day it hit me – I don’t have to BE like this forever. I can DO something about it!
How? No idea.
But I had an inkling that it was possible.
And this would start a lifelong journey into personal development, which I jumped headfirst into as soon as I could.
It was around this time that I found the aforementioned “wise man” quote and realized that people ahead of me were sharing their life lessons. And if I could learn from them instead of making the same ones, I could save myself a lot of pain and time.
Seriously…
Getting access to hard-won lessons that others already did the work to create is a surefire way to shortcut your personal development journey and get to living the life you know you’re truly meant to live as pain-free and quickly as possible.
On this note, I don’t know about you, but…
I wanted to change, and I wanted to change FAST.
I was hungry. Eager. Ready.
(Maybe you are too?)
So I started looking for as many life lessons as I could find wherever I could find them: magazine articles, books, and even observation of people.
(This was before blogs, podcasts, and YouTube existed)
And learn I did. And change I did.
Decades later, I’m such a different person. Even my middle school BFF agrees. And we’ve known each other a long time now.
I’m still *me* at my core – a balance I’ve had to learn over the years in terms of knowing I’m worthy, understanding my “true self”, aligning to my highest self, and embracing the natural change of life along the way.
The way I see it is – it’s about becoming the best version of you for your highest good.
And a lot of this site and my content overall is aligned to this theme of being wise and learning from others.
Yes, I’m sharing what I’m learning from others.
And it’s also my turn to give back. To share my life lessons. To hopefully help others in the same way that so many people – ones I met and ones I never will – have helped me.
So dear reader, if you truly want to change your life, remember to be wise. Look for the lessons out there. They’re everywhere! I’ll share mine here in case you find any of them helpful.
There is SO much great knowledge out there. Thanks to books and what not, we can even learn lessons from others who have come before us thousands of years ago!
For almost anything you’re trying to achieve in life, whether you’re wanting to finally learn how to be confident, picking yourself back up from divorce, or just starting to embrace that maybe self help isn’t such a bad thing, there’s a 99% chance someone has been through the same challenge as you and has some tips to help you on your way.
And yes, we’ll all still make mistakes. Even ones that have been solved hundreds of thousands of times before. That’s just being human. Remember to be kind to yourself on your personal development journey.
But how empowering is it to know that we can leverage the life lessons of others to improve our own lives. It’s pretty cool, right?
So remember this…
Learning from others is the cheat code to winning at life.
So stop trying to figure everything out on your own. You won’t get cookies, a badge, or a trophy by doing things the hard way. Life is hard enough. Take the shortcuts when you can!
Journal Prompts
- What am I working on / what’s the challenge I’m currently facing / what am I trying to achieve?
- Who is someone who has been through something similar before? How can I learn from them? (Think book authors, writers, podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers, and even people you know in your personal life + where they share their work)
- What are 1-3 lessons / takeaways / tips that really resonate with me that I want to try?
- From what I’ve learned from them, what would I like to try most? How soon can I try it and when?
And remember to take action on what you learn! Reading is great, and knowledge is power. But action makes change actually happen!
Read Next
You Have the Power to Change Your Life (8 Tips to Claim That Power)
xo,
Diana
PS: I’ve learned from TONS of other people, and I’ll be sharing my favorite teachers, authors, lessons, and more. Stay tuned here for more if you’d like to see my recommendations.