7 Benefits of Learning From Others’ Experiences
What’s the best way to achieve success? Should you go it alone, following only your gut and your own instincts? Or should you try to learn from the experience of others? The truth is that there are definite benefits to learning from others’ experiences. Here are seven benefits of learning from others’ experiences that will help you achieve your goals more quickly and easily than if you didn’t have this valuable resource available to you.
1>They Help You Feel Less Alone
Feeling less alone in your journey and realizing others have been through similar experiences is a great benefit of learning from others’ experiences. Remind yourself that you’re not if you feel like you are going at it alone. You are just one of the millions of other people who have or are currently experiencing what you are feeling and going through what you are going through.
2>They Give you Tools to Cope with your Fears
Everyone is afraid to fail, Beryl Bender Birch writes in her book The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. It is part of being human. So learn from other people’s failures and errors without letting them consume you with fear and doubt. We are all human, but we can learn from one another’s mistakes—and turn them into successes.
3>They Show How No One is Perfect
There’s no such thing as a perfect person, so why would you think you need to be perfect? By learning from other people’s experiences, you can better understand what not to do and focus on making yourself a better person. Many people make foolish mistakes that we don’t want to repeat in our own lives.
4>They Provide Motivation
Sometimes all you need is a little inspiration. As much as we would like to think we’re self-starters and motivated, sometimes we need a reminder of what’s possible and what that can look like in our own lives.
5>They Show You a Different Path
Every entrepreneur has taken a unique route to where they are today. As inspiring as it is to hear tales of overnight success, it’s even more compelling when you meet someone who struggled along their way but overcame adversity to build something that works. What’s your story? What path will you take? Will you be one in a million or one in ten thousand? It all starts with learning from others.
6>They Open Your Mind to New Things
Other people’s experiences can make us question our reality and show us different ways of doing things. While there’s no substitute for real-world experience, we can learn from others and broaden our view on things. This can help open your mind to new opportunities you might not have considered before. You don’t have to reinvent everything—other people have gone through it all already; they may be able to offer solutions that are better than yours or at least a different perspective.
7>They Remind You We are All Human
Some experts believe that we should strive to become perfect, or that any mistake is an unforgivable failure. Nothing could be further from the truth. As humans, we are all striving to be better than we were yesterday—it’s what keeps us moving forward. No one else has life figured out perfectly—no one is immune to mistakes and setbacks—so why should you feel like you have to be?
