‘”It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes but an even wiser man to learn from others”. This is a very popular saying by John C. Maxwell on being wise from own experiences and others’. I have to admit, I’ve become wise but not wiser. I am sure we all used to have so many life lesson lectures from our elders that did not make sense to young us – it’s because our surroundings, our adventures, our circle, our knowledge on things, our perspectives, our ideas, our comprehension, our clarity was short and limited. But when I recall those life lessons now, every single one of them have started making sense. The only difference between young us and this us is ‘the experience‘.
12 wise lessons that can change your life forever
Health is Everything.
We’ve heard a lot about health being our everything. As a matter of a fact, we’ve read and written speeches/ debates about the famous quote “Health is Wealth“ so many times. We are well-aware about this saying and we even believe it but most of the times we ignore the truth and what we believe in. Most of us these days kind of have become hypocrite. We know how to take care of ourselves and yet do otherwise. Taking time to be healthy is like investing on the highest yielding stocks – we all know how important and profitable is investing in stocks these days, right? You gain and gain and gain and if you keep investing, it multiplies your overall wealth just by doing simple regular things. Your lifestyles choices, your routines, your habits, and your everyday decisions determine your overall health. So, start from here and Right Now! slowly but constantly. Being healthy not only saves you all those medical expenses but also keeps you mentally and physically sound.
Happiness is A Choice and It is Felt.
Everyone wants to be happy, who does not? We chase happiness as if it was some kind of achievement or that big promotion of life we’ve been wanting for a long time, but It Is Not. It is a everyday choice just like we choose what to eat for breakfast or lunch. Happiness should not be limited to what you gain or what you lose, it should defined based on what you’ve chosen in the present. Most of us seem to connect our happiness to what we will achieve tomorrow when happiness is all about today and Now. We should practice how to be happy in little things of our daily lives.
Sometimes, I find myself imagining what happiness might look like if I achieved something I’ve been dreaming for a very long time. However, when I come back to reality, it burdens me more than relieving me. I see how far I am to being even close to what I want to be. I bet most of us do this everyday. As I have mentioned earlier, happiness is a choice which cannot be seen, but felt with everyday choices. We imagine happiness when we don’t practice to feel it today. We try to picture the face of happiness when we are drowing in nervousness of incompetence and failure. Happiness needs to be felt in small portions of life. We need to make every moment of our lives count right now because there might not even be tomorrow. So, feel your happiness in the present, don’t wait too long in hope of seeing it.
Invest both Time and Money in You.
I have come to realize that this saying is so underrated. We need to invest our time and money in what we would love to die for because at the end regrets hurt more than dying itself. Spend your limited time and hard-earned money on things that inspire you, shakes you (positively) to the core, grow you to a wonderful human being. Expending on your health and all those productive aspects of your life is not spending, it’s more like investing that yields fruitful results in coming years. If you do not start right now, you probably will have a lot of tears of remorse coming onto your way sooner or later. For example, if you have been thinking of starting your own business, invest your time and savings in it. Take risk. Even if you make mistakes, you’ll gain experience or be wiser. However, if you are a person who love to work in a defined time schedule, invest your time on a job that you love. It is your choice to pamper yourself with things you love. “Investing in yourself is the best kind of investment that there is”.
Expand and Limit Your Circles.
Our main circle is everything we are now and who we become tomorrow. Who we hang out with, who we travel and enjoy with, who we look upto, who influences our decisions determine our quality of life and health in overall. Choosing our friends is like choosing a family, it impacts our entire well-being for life. So, when I say expand your circle, I mean choosing people who influence you positively, who inspires you to grow and who motivates you to keep moving further even when your entire mind and body is telling you to stop. Select people in your group who are like-minded as you and who helps you move ahead. However, limit your exposure in social surroundings where you don’t fit-in easily as it might only offer criticisms and negativity.
Do Not Compare, Relate.
With all the social medias and internet, everyone’s life have become transparent to everyone. We have an easy access to peoples’ successes, their downfalls, their life story, their current happenings, almost everything. This gives us an oppotunity to compare ours lives to theirs. We see our relatives and friends happy on their photos or even celebraties having a blast, which automatically triggers our subconscious brain to compare our lives. Comparison is good when we’re looking at a brighter side but when we feel like our lives is not weighing up to others’, it becomes the most unhealthy way to live life. Measuring up to others never works because we will not have worn their shoes and nor have they ours. Instead of comparing, we can relate to others. Relating to others in similar situation can bring everyone together positively. People tend to bond stronger when they relate their pain, grief, happiness, sadness.
Practice Achieving Peace of Mind Daily.
Just like our physical health, our peace of mind is equally important. There is a very popular saying by Brian Tracy “Set peace of mind as your highest goal and organize your life around it“. When you have a peaceful mind, every aspects of your life slowly start putting-up together. You achieve different level of satisfaction and fulfillment. By practicing this, you’ll gain clarity on your important matters. Having clarity can help prioritize, organize, decide, and carry out necessary tasks which ultimately will contribute towards your desired becoming.
Privacy is Under-rated These Days.
Nowadays, we are busy showing-off our lives in the apps and internet to people we barely know. As technological advancement flourished and modernization took over, we slowly forgot how to be content with our privacy. If we missed out some parts of lives without sharing it in facebook, instaram, twitter, or pinterest, or even tiktok now, we feel incomplete. Our happiness is connected to what people say about us in social media. We need to learn how to be happy without the attention around us because private moments captured in heart never compares to what we photograph. Being private about things we love, what we do, and where we chill and mastering to absorb the moment without technological devices will make us feel much lighter afterwards.
Expenses are Like Seeds of Mustard Falling from a Hole of its Sack.
I wish I knew this at my early age. I’ve grown up hearing this every single day from my parents but as like most of us, I did not give it a much thought. However, I realized far too better and more about this saying when I lost track of my finance and expenses. Spending more than a limit and my income became a habit that was so-so hard to stop. Once you gain the habit of spending, you don’t realize where your expenses are overflowing from just like you will not be able to track seeds of mustard from a hole. It keeps falling but you will not be able to notice until it’s about to finish. So, if you are someone whose expenses are way too much, stop and stop now. Put your finances together, see where your money is being spent on. If you are impulsive buyer or shopper, carry as less amount as possible with you or make your banking accounts hard to withdraw from, keep daily track of your expenses.
Quality time should be defined by you.
Today, we have so many options to how and where we spend our spare time. Most of the time we end up hanging out somewhere we don’t feel like because of peer pressure or because the place is hyped up in social media or cause everyone is doing it. This is your time and you should be the one who is responsible for choosing your idea of quality time. I know sometimes we end up alone because nobody wants to do it, but it’s fine. We have to realize that it’s their time as well. Let them enjoy it however they want to. But this does not mean that you have to let your people drag you with them even if it does not give you the vibe. If your qaulity time looks like sleeping-in, reading books, writing stuffs, spending time with family, or cozying up on that empty space of your home, or doing some regular things (which might look boring to other people), DO IT. Don’t be afraid of being judged. This is who you are so why pretend to fit-in when you really don’t?
Read, Read, and Write.
Some of us don’t like to read stuffs that much, I used to be one as a matter of fact. It took me a very long time to make a habit of reading. It sucked at first but slowly and gradually it started to feel like a meditation and yoga. When you read things – could be online or books, it does not neccessary have to make sense to you. What you gain from reading is perspective on things that you don’t understand from your point of view. Reading makes you achieve a level of understanding in different matters and you get learn that every one is different. Others thoughts matter just like yours and you eventually realize that there is no definite answer to every question. This offers you the power to accept differences and when we accept differences, the world looks more colorful and exciting. Moreover, if you feel like it, you could write in your notebooks or journels. This habit makes you clearer on your own thoughts and understanding yourself.
Don’t Stress, Relax.
We seem to stress about every thing in our life, we have become too serious. It’s like our lives are living us rather than we should be living it. I know, there is too much competition, we cannot realx at the moment, we should be running not taking breaks right now. The thought of competition has gained advantage over our personal freedom and life. We have let our lives to take over the steering when it should have been us. We don’t know what we are competing for but do it anyways because if we don’t, we look like a failure. In the process of not looking like a complete failure in others’ eyes, we are losing ourselves, we are becoming someone we don’t even want to be, when we’re different we are trying to be alike, when we are supposed to find ourselves we are moving farther away. Everything in life does not have to be serious, have fun, relax. Relaxing helps more than stressing.
Consistency is The Key.
So many times we hear that consistency being the most powerful tool to achieve something. It is true. We are so motivated one day on doing something but as soon as some problems surface or it becomes hard, we have a tendency to quit. I, myself can barely count things I left incomplete because it became harder to continue and I lacked inspiration on daily basis. However, in my later years I realized that the main thing behind my unsuccessful achievements was inconsistency – not lacked motivation. I know it’s easrier said than done yet, “Fruit of your hard work is the sweetest”. Being consistent not only helps reflect your daily progress, it makes you disciplined as well and when it comes to achieveing your goals discipline is a prime factor. So, if you’ve left things on half, try your best to complete it. If you have to, take small baby steps but daily and slowly you’ll create a habit. A powerful habit of not being able to quit.
Conclusion
These 12 life-changing lessons might look simple and ordinary but trust me if you really sink these in your though process and practice it daily, you’ll be able to see life so differently (beautiful). Everday, we are making simple choices that sum up our overall life. So, since you really have to choose, make wise decisions frequently. It is your life, your decisions, your happiness, your dreams, your destination, take over that steering and move where you feel safe and home.
Do you agree with my personal findings on life lessons? If you have other eye-opening life experiences, please do leave them in the comment section so that we all can be a little wiser together. Do not forget to subscribe to my newsletter if you like what you’re reading here and if you want to be updated on my future posts.
