Learning From Others Without Committing Their Mistakes

Some movers in this world tell you that you only learn when you make the mistakes yourself, true. But there are other better ways in many believes

It is rightly said that learning from other’s mistakes is perhaps the best way of learning. Ask a scholar of Material Science, and she will tell you that there are two kinds of testing- Destructive testing and Non destructive testing. In destructive testing, you destroy the sample to assess the strength and abilities of the material. And as the name suggests, Non destructive testing involves application of testing methodologies that do not destroy the sample while doing so. Learning and engineering testing might be two different domains, they do have one point in common – both are critical in improvement of the subject.

Committing mistakes is almost inherent to the learning process, but it is the ability to learn from others’ failures and successes that differentiate between an achiever and an under performer. Life is short, competition for success is hectic and the circumstances are unforgiving. We do have the luxury of a couple of mistakes, but if we keep making mistakes chances are that we might loose the race of evolution. Learning can be moved to a fast track mode if and only if we learn through observation, and not necessarily self experience. Just look around and you will observe numerous small examples of personal and professional success and failures. Skeptics may always term success and failures as luck or fluke, but a close inspection will reveal that there is a definite method in this apparent madness.

Observation and introspection are the two basic building blocks of learning from other people’s mistakes. Failure, be it for self or others, should lead to learning. A keen sense of observation helps us to identify small instances in life that can offer us valuable learning opportunities. However, just observation alone might not help you learn. Thorough introspection can help us process this information to get valuable knowledge. However, learning from others’ failures and success is undoubtedly the best and the fastest road to learning. Re-inventing the wheel does not take anyone anywhere. Rather, incremental learning derived from others’ experiences is what is required. Be it science, engineering of humanities- growth has happened based on previous findings.

However, when you are absorbing new ideas from someone, make sure that you understand the circumstances associated with the incident. We all are different, and have our own set of idiosyncratic skills, behavioral patterns and strengths. This simply means that we should not blindly copy from others’ experiences, but take into account external factors before assimilating the learning. The guiding principle being- learn, but beware of what you learn and whom you learn from. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and wrong knowledge is absolutely fatal.

Learning is indeed a continuous process; it is the journey rather than the destination. While so many have strayed away from this path and are lost in the darkness of ignorance, others have kept moving on that path. Among them, some trudge along, learn from their own mistakes. However, the smartest ones keep learning from other people’s mistakes and emerge winners.