How can you become wise

Find people whom you respect and who emulate the values and ideals that represent wisdom. Look for people doing the things you find interesting and of importance. Ask those people questions. Listen with great care to what they have to say, for you will learn much from their experience and reflection. Mentors don't have to be successful people or people you want to "be like. Learn to recognize the wisdom in everyone. Read everything. Read the writings of philosophers and social commentators.

Read comics. Read Lee Child adventure novels. Read online or on mobile devices. Get a library card. Read contemporary Irish poetry. Read Melville. Read as if your life depended on it and form opinions about the things you read and talk with others about what you've read. Read about other people's experiences and learn how others before you have dealt with situations that you're likely to face.

Share with your mentors. It's a mistake to think that the wise are above it all. Never troubled by their emotions, wise people float above the rest of us in an unfeeling bubble of their own making. Not true. When you're feeling frustrated or disappointed in something, it's natural to want to discuss it with someone who will understand. Surround yourself with willing and receptive wise people who'll give you a sounding board. Be open with them and they'll be open with you.

Practice humility. Is it wise to sell yourself? The business and marketing world has convinced us self-promotion is a necessity, because we've managed to turn ourselves into commodities in need of a good sales pitch, and business language frequently reflects this. However, there is a huge difference between acknowledging to yourself and others that you are good at doing something and exaggerating a range of skill sets beyond your comfort zone just to keep up with the competition. In turn, people will know that they can depend on your reliability for those traits.

Being humble is wise because it allows the real you to shine through. Humility also ensures that you respect the abilities of others rather than fearing them; the wisdom of accepting your own limitations and connecting with other people's strengths to bolster yours is infinite.

Be there for others. Wise people don't have to live in caves, growing wizard beards in their hermitage. Exchange wisdom with others to help guide them. As a mentor and teacher yourself, you can help other people learn about critical thinking, embracing feelings, loving lifelong learning, and trusting themselves. Avoid the temptation to use learning as a barrier against others. Knowledge is for sharing not hoarding, and wisdom will only grow when exposed to everyone else's ideas no matter how confronting they may be.

Method 3. Learn to recognize your faults. The hardest journey is often the one that requires looking inside yourself and being honest about what you find. Unless you're willing to know yourself well and learn to love both the strengths and weaknesses within you, it is difficult to be wise. Knowing yourself provides the space in which you can grow and forgive yourself as you journey through life.

Be wary of any self-improvement advice that claims to have "secrets". The only "secret" to self-improvement is that it requires hard work and constancy. Beyond that, you can fiddle at the edges attested to remarkably by the massive success of the self-help industry but you cannot change the reality of having to do the work of personal introspection and reflection on the world yourself. Accept that you can't know everything. The wisest of people have long been those who realize they actually know very little, often in spite of decades of learning and reflecting.

The more you think about people, things, and events, the more it becomes clear that there is always more to know and that what you do know is but a pinhead amid all knowledge. Acceptance of the limitations of your own knowledge is a key to wisdom. Expertise refers to a high level of knowledge in a distinct field, whereas wisdom refers to the broader notion seeing the big picture of that knowledge, and to live calmly reassured of your decisions and actions in light of your knowledge.

Be responsible for yourself. If you've spent years doing what was right according to someone else's standards rather than your own, you're not being responsible for yourself. Change the job where nobody recognizes your talents and find one where people will discover the tiger within. Move somewhere you're comfortable. Find a way to earn a living that doesn't compromise your compassion, care, and interests. Self-responsibility, including learning to accept the consequences of making your own decisions, increases wisdom.

However, each of us harbor bits and pieces of wisdom. As we cultivate our wisdom, we strengthen our contributions to the collective success of society. How can you become wiser? Gaining new wisdom is an ongoing process of discovery. Get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Put yourself into situations to learn and grow.

You might consider going to places you have never been before, engaging in skill building activities that are new to you, and participating in novel social events. Change it up and see where it takes you.

Set aside your biases and be receptive to different concepts and points of view. Develop a sense of curiosity as you observe the world from different angles. Let your mind be a judgement free sponge for innovative ideas. Be humble as you encounter new learnings and experiences. Get out and meet new people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. Put forth the effort to listen and learn from them without inflicting your own preconceived stereotypes and judgments.

Will yours be wise? It could mean the difference between barely surviving and truly thriving in life, even during troubled times. Wise people learn from their mistakes, see life from many perspectives, and cultivate a sense of adventure and humor. They accept uncertainty and are open to new experiences.

There are people who are very intelligent, but they're very unhappy… they may not be liked by others. While happiness is fleeting, wisdom is an internal contentedness that lasts, Jeste noted. Studies show people who score high on this trait, especially the compassion component, are not likely to be lonely. You can find out your own wisdom score by taking an online assessment.

To nurture compassion, both for others and yourself, a daily minute loving kindness meditation can be a helpful exercise. Keeping a gratitude journal to write about three good things that happened to you each day is another way to build empathy, the authors noted.

Jeste used road rage as an example of how three steps can help people avoid having emotions get out of control and keep perspective:.