Your life isn’t long enough to learn from your own mistakes, so you should make a point of learning from others.
Mistakes Are Well Documented, We’re Just Too Proud To Go And Read Them.
Pride is a cardinal sin, but more than in religion, in the field of personal development, pride prevents us from progressing. Pride makes us believe that we are different from (let alone superior to) others, so we don’t bother to listen carefully to what they have to say. Pride leads us to make mistakes ourselves that we could have learned from others, at a cost in time, energy and opportunity. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel to succeed; knowing how to assimilate the heritage of those who have gone before us is enough to put us on the right track to success. The best way to start learning from others is to cultivate your own humility, which makes you more receptive to what you read or hear.
Here’s a quote I like in connection with this subject: He who knows who knows, listen to him. He who does not know that he knows, awaken him. He who knows that he doesn’t know, educate him. If you don’t know that you don’t know, run away from him. Lao Tzu
Cultivating Humility
Humility is the cornerstone of our ability to learn from others. To develop it, we need to face life head-on and realize that we don’t know very much. Voluntarily exposing yourself to difficult challenges (physical or intellectual) is a good way to gain humility. If you avoid difficulty and never confront yourself with who you really are, it’s easy to become proud or arrogant. Do combat sports, take on difficult studies (medicine, law etc.), you’ll see that you’ll have to become more humble to succeed.
Become Spiritual
One way to become more humble is to start your spiritual journey (the reverse is also true). The gentler life is on you, the less inclined you’ll be to connect with God, so look for the discomfort to feel the need to enter into communion with God.
Where To Find Other People’s Mistakes?
There are millions of books you can learn from people’s biographies. Learn to become an idea seeker. Once you come across an interesting new idea, stop reading and meditate on the depth of that thought. Wisdom is knowledge to which you have applied thought and practice. Try to find parallels with your life as you read, and try to find a practical outcome to the teachings you can glean here and there.
All People Are Your Masters
You can learn both good and bad from people. The faults and qualities of the people around you can educate you. If you see a flaw, ask yourself if you have it too. If you observe a quality, try to develop it in yourself. That said, always try to maintain a certain distance so that people don’t contaminate you with their faults.
Mistakes Are Often Linked To A Lack Of Virtue
A large proportion of the mistakes we make (those that have a major impact on our lives) are linked to a moral shortcoming. The mistakes we make out of ignorance are not usually the most damaging. But when you touch on an ethical point, you expose yourself to greater consequences. If you betray a friend, if you lie conscientiously, etc., you can suffer serious consequences for your well-being, because you’ll have reached your capital of honor. That’s why it’s always instructive to read philosophical, spiritual or ethical books to build a solid moral foundation if you haven’t been able to acquire it at home.
Treat Your Brain Like An Artificial Intelligence To Make The Best Decisions
Artificial intelligence needs a lot of data and different procedures to function. It is through repetition and training with millions of pieces of data that it can be precise enough to give recommendations or display results with great accuracy. The human brain works in much the same way: it needs to gather information (through reading, training, etc.), put it into practice and observe the discrepancy between the result and its predilections. You can therefore accumulate knowledge by reading voraciously, while at the same time trying to put into practice what you learn and observe others around you (for example, via a Master mind or groups on specific themes). This is the quickest way to learn from other people’s mistakes.
In A Nutshell:
– Your life wouldn’t be enough if you had to learn only from your mistakes.
– You must force yourself to learn from the people around you, either by imitating them to achieve the same result, or by doing the opposite to avoid achieving the same results.
– You can treat your brain like an artificial intelligence and accumulate book knowledge while trying to put it into practice.
