“Experience is the best teacher” is an idiomatic expression that has been used since time memorial. The proverb in layman’s language means that the most lessons in life are learnt through events that happen rather than from studying or listening to other people’s stories. The lessons, failures and the successes we go through in life are what experience entails. Acquiring experience is not always about the information you have. When you are introduced to something new, that is when your experience begins. When it comes to getting experience on a professional level, you usually have to pay. For life’s experiences, they come free and have the greatest impact. These are the experiences that help us to tackle the different issues in life.

Ways in which experience helps to improve problem-solving abilities

Experience helps us to solve problems in various ways:

• Recurrent experience. The insight from experience helps you to handle the same problem in future when it reoccurs in a better way.
• Solution-focused lens. Experience teaches you how to look at problems as situations that can be tackled no matter how bad they are.
• Reduce emotional decision-making. Once you experience bad decision-making due to emotional influence, you are unlikely to make the same mistake in the future.
• Trust your intuition. This is different from emotion. Experience teaches you to listen to your inner voice when solving problems.
• Once you have experienced life’s problems, you learn that all of them are solvable. You become persistent in finding solutions in future problems.
• Choosing battles. Experience teaches you that not every problem needs to be acted upon immediately or even at all.
• Experience enables you to learn how to become proactive by not turning concerns into problems.

How to be receptive to new experiences

Life changes all the time. In order for growth to occur it is necessary to be open to gaining new experiences. Here are some ways to do this:

• Understand your comfort zone. When you understand the source of your responses to life’s situations you become more open to moving on.
• Understand that no one is good at anything at first. This will help you to keep exploring into new experiences.
• Set attainable goals. When venturing into new experiences take small steps instead of big leaps.
• Embrace curiosity. Get rid of fear and let your curiosity guide you into new experiences.
• It is good for you. Keep reminding yourself that gaining new experiences will benefit you.
• Put your anxiety into perspective to be able to analyze outcomes in a better way.
• Never get tired. You only gain experience by trying something new over and over again.

Conclusion

Life is a learning process. We gain new experience in different situations on a daily basis. Using that experience can help us to lead better lives while avoiding the mistakes of the past. Experiences help you to grow as a person, and you gain wisdom by paying attention to the lessons that life throws at you.

By Winnie