Because I used to believe that when I grow, I don’t need to be a student anymore, and it will be great for me.

But I was wrong!

Growing up means I leave my childhood schools and move to a bigger school — Its name is life school.

And this school you must go to every day in your whole life without a single day off.

In adult life, I recognize that it is still the same model as in school life, you also have a “teacher role” — the people who have information and skills to share the information for the other. While the “student role” — people who want to learn and grow from the thing they don’t know.

And the important is what role you will play in this life school?

From my personal experiences for many years in “this school”, I recognize that being a student in this school is far better than trying to be a teacher. And in this story, I will share with you the reasons why I have a strong belief in this point of view. As it changes me a lot and helps me to grow in many aspects of life.

1. To achieve goals: Learning and asking for the things you want.

This is a technique that we all learn when we start to go to kindergarten as a student.

Every day, the teacher will teach the kids to learn something new. To discover the things surrounding their living environment, and encourage them to ask if they don’t understand or need somethings. For example, if they need some toys, or go to the bathroom, or need some foods to fill up their hungry stomachs.

When we grow up, life school also operates in the same way.

If you really want to have something, you need to learn the skills to do it or ask someone to help you do it.

And let make a basic example, if you want to open a company, you need to learn or find someone who can help you to register your company, recruit the staff, how to do tax,…

All of these “How to” are the primary questions that you need to learn to start your new journey as a business owner. But the difference is you need to seek or ask for questions from different sources, maybe from someone you know or from people you have never met before.

It is very different compared to your childhood school, where you can find the specific answers for specific objects from the specific teacher.

It means if you want to solve the math question, you can come to ask the math teacher how to do it, and you know exactly where to find your math teacher.

But in your life school, the “teacher” who can teach you to solve your “ life puzzle” normally doesn’t appear when you need it, and you need to really seek hard to reach out to this person to help you to answer your questions.

So you still need to keep learning and asking for the things you want, because if you don’t do it. Nobody will come to you and say “Hey, you should do this and shouldn’t do that to become successful”.

Because your success is your responsibility.

2. To achieve goals: Doing your homework

A teacher is a person who gives students homework that needs to be done at home before going to school.

In the real-life, your homework is the task that you need to self-solving and spend a lot of time finding the answer if you want to be successful.

You will not have a teacher who stands next to you and explain to you why you are wrong and ask you to fix it one more time to make everything be perfect as you are a child.

In the “life-school”, you will know your answer is wrong if the outcome is not as you expect, or we can call it — the failures. And nobody will come to you after your first failure and say that

This is a right formula, let use it and in the second time, you will make the right answer perfectly.

Well, life school is not that so kind.

If you fail for the first time, you need to self-adjustment and start to do it again, the second time, the third time,…until you can find the right answer.

Because nobody will help you to solve your homework, except you. And the life school is full of “error and trial”, not just one or two times to get the right answer directly.

3. To achieve goals: Be fresh with anythings

Always approach the things with a fresh mind

This is a lesson that my mother always told me for years. In her mind, she believes that if we can approach everything the first time we learn about it, it will make the learning process to be more interesting and encourage us to learn more and grow more.

It is the same way to approach new knowledge of a student. When we don’t know about the things we going to learn, we feel really excited to discover more about it.

Let remember the first time you learn how to write when you were a kid, you are so fresh and love to write and draw everywhere in your house, even when you don’t have a real pencil.

Your mom lipsticks, dad’s ink, cosmetics of the sister,… all can be your pen to learn to write.

But when you approach the thing as you already know somethings, you will have the mindset of the teacher that you already know about it and keep the doubt about what you going to learn.

The reality is everything changes, nothing is the same forever.

And if you keep the mindset that you know all, you can’t learn a new thing effectively. Because your mind will always say that you already have enough things to know about this topic and limit your ability to adapt to the new knowledge.

4. To achieve goals: Listen carefully and take the lessons

Teachers love to talk, and students love to listen

To be a success in life, you need to have good communication skills. And obviously, when you can speak well like a teacher, it will be great for you to communicate with others.

However, communication skills not only come from speaking but it is also come from listening. And if you can improve your listening skill, you will achieve more than you can expect.

Because when you speak, it means that you are sharing something you know for others; to spread your mindset; your knowledge. It helps to present you as a well-knowledge person in this field, but you don’t get any new information for yourself.

But when you become a good listener, it means that you are learning valuable information from others.

Because they give you their experiences; their success and failure lessons.

These lessons help you to avoid mistakes and get a lot of valuable lessons for your future without spending years trying and making errors. And it helps you to go to success faster when you have this skill.

So listening carefully and taking the lesson is not only a great way to get high marks in your childhood schools but it also can change your life a lot when you are a student in life school.

5. To achieve goals: Not being a teacher

When you think you are a teacher, you tend to show that you know everything, you speak more than listening, do the same things again and again. These are the signals to show that you are having the mindset of a teacher.

Being a teacher means you are really focused on one specific area and keeps using your own knowledge to spread out again and again to the “new students”. It could be a good way to earn money by teaching people about what you are an expert in, but it is not good for you as a person who wants to grow to be a better version.

If you want to make your self-development process go up smoothly and effectively, you need to keep the mindset of a student, always feel curious, and have a lot of energy to learn about different things in your life.

Because life is a journey of learning and experiences, so don’t let you feel regret when you are old because of the things you didn’t do or learn.

If you want to read more about personal development topics, let check it out at “Wiki Personal Development”.