6 Lessons of Life That Everyone Should Know

Life is filled with surprises and it can be easy to forget the small things that make up our day-to-day existence. In between your job interviews, your broken relationships and your arguments over the price of groceries, there are moments when you really take stock of just how fortunate you are. Every now and then, it's helpful to look at the bigger picture in order to remind ourselves of what we're working towards as a whole.

As cliché as this might sound, life is like a journey and there will be plenty of pitfalls along the way – but that doesn’t mean you have to stay in them. Here are 6 lessons of life that everyone should know so that their future doesn’t repeat their past mistakes:

Everyone goes through a rough patch

The human mind is a funny thing: we tend to put a lot of store by what we do, which is why we can find ourselves feeling disappointed in ourselves when things don’t go our way. But if you look closely at the specifics of what it is that you’re doing when you’re feeling down, you’ll see that it’s simply one part of the greater picture.

Maybe you’re getting sick or have a temporary setback in your career and don’t have the energy to deal with it at the moment. Maybe something else is going on that isn’t as significant, but if we spend all of our energy on worrying about what isn’t in front of us, we’ll never be able to see what is. Take the time to analyse your situation and you’ll realise that things are not as bad as they seem, and they’ll get better soon.

You’ll make mistakes

There are no perfect people in the world and there are no perfect careers. Some mistakes come back to haunt you and leave a lasting mark on your memory, but others serve as valuable lessons that you can take away to improve your life. In the first instance, mistakes are unavoidable.

There are few careers that allow for the freedom to make mistakes without consequences, and there are few people whose minds are able to look past those mistakes. For the rest of us, however, our mistakes are a valuable reminder that we’re human. There are people who are better at certain things than we are and people who do things better than we do them. By looking at other people’s successes and failures, we can learn to recognize where we’re falling short and make an effort to improve.

There will be good people in your life

You don’t have to be around for every good memory in your life to know that the people who matter most to you are there for you, too. You might be with certain people for a short space of time, or you might have been with them for years. Regardless of how long you’ve known them, there will come a point in your life when they’ve done something that makes you realise how much you appreciate them, or how much they’ve enriched your life.

Maybe it’s a small gesture, like helping you with a chore or letting you borrow their car when you’ve run out of cash. Maybe it’s a big thing, like helping you out with a difficult decision or bringing you together with a dear friend. Whatever it is, there’s a good chance that you’ll never see that person do it again. Take the time to write the person a card, tell them how much you appreciate them when they’re not around, and you’ll find that the people you care about are much closer to your heart than you realise.

Finding balance is key to a happy life

Sometimes we all need a break from our busy lives. If you’ve been working a 9-5 job that’s kept you away from home for long periods of time, or if you’ve been struggling with the pressures of a high-profile career, it might be time to take a step back and review how you’re spending your time. If your Facebook newsfeed and Instagram account are full of pictures of you with drink in hand, if you’ve only been seeing your friends on weekends rather than in the week, it’s time to reevaluate.

There’s no harm in taking a break from your hectic schedule from time to time. If you’ve been working long hours or putting a lot of pressure on yourself, it’s okay to take a break and re-energise yourself. As long as you re-charge, take a break and re-assess, you’ll be ready to get back to business when you’re ready to.

Don’t take anything for granted

You don’t get to see all of life’s lessons and experiences at once. They don’t all happen at once, either. You don’t know when one of the greatest moments in your life will come, or you’ll find yourself in the middle of one of the greatest moments of your life. You don’t know which person will be in your life for one day, or one year, and there’s no telling when you’ll have the opportunity to take a closer look at one of the lessons you’ve learnt.

Don’t take anything for granted and make sure that you always have the chance to look at the things in your life from a different perspective. Make a list of the things that you’re grateful for and keep it somewhere that you can see it whenever you need motivation.

Learn to say “no”

If you don’t make the decision to say “no”, someone else will. It might be your boss, your best friend or your mother, but someone will always ask you to do something that you don’t want to do.

By learning to say “no”, you’ll be able to avoid situations where you feel pressured to say “yes” – situations whereyou feel like you’re saying something you don’t want to say. There will always be situations where you have to say “yes” to something that you don’t want to do, but there will also be situations where you don’t have to do something that you don’t want to do.