7 Life Lessons Learned from Helen Keller

Helen Keller was an amazing woman. She was blind, deaf, and mute, yet that didn’t stop her from achieving her dreams.

Helen was not a person who made excuses, she made things happen. She is a constant reminder that anything is possible.

Despite her circumstances, Helen Keller became a world famous author, activist, and speaker. One of her many accomplishments includes being the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

I believe we can learn a lot from Helen Keller. In fact here are 7 things we can learn from Helen Keller!

Go After Your Dreams  

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is often a state of mind. ” 

I often tell people to go after their dreams and turn them into a reality. My skeptics would say, “That’s unrealistic,”. . . . but what’s the point of being “realistic.” 

Nothing great has ever been achieved by a “realist.”
Albert Einstein was not a realist, the Wright Brothers were not realists, Thomas Edison was not a realist, and Alexander Graham Bell was certainly not a realist. 

Question “realistic.” Take the limits off; go after your dreams. 

You Must Have a Vision

“It’s a terrible thing to see, and have no vision!”  

Do you have a vision, a goal, a plan, a mission for your life? Isaiah wrote that without a vision the people perish. Great leaders have to be visionaries, they have an internal picture of where they are going; they fixate on their vision and make course corrections as necessary. What’s your vision?

Nothing’s Impossible

“We can do almost anything we want to do, if we have a smart plan and stick to it long enough.”  

The beauty of “time” is that you can accomplish just about anything if you keep at it long enough. Set your mind on what you want to accomplish, and don’t stop until you get there. They say the usefulness of the postage stamp consists in its ability to stick to something until it gets there. Learn from the postage stamp; stay committed to your dream until you get there.

Experience is Priceless

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be fully understood.” 

Knowledge is necessary, but experience is priceless. Learn from all of life’s lessons! Never be afraid to get your hands dirty by getting some first-hand experience. Only experience can bring full understanding.

Focus on the Positive

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” 

Although we could focus on the negative things around us, it doesn’t do us much good. Helen Keller said, “Keep your face to the sunshine and you will never see the shadow.” I think this is good advice. Make the decision to see glass as “half-full." 

Hang-out with Winners

“While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.” 

Winners hang-out with winners. Plain & simple . . . .  do not hang-out with negative people. Negative people are like “vampires,” they suck the life from everything around them. They will tell you “how you can’t, why you can’t, and how you’re going to fail when you try.” If you spend time with these “chickens” for too long, you’ll forget that you have the ability to soar like an eagle. 

Your Destiny is in Your Hands

“What I am looking for is not “out there,” it is in me” 

Everything you need to succeed, you already have inside of you. Shakespeare wrote, "The fault dear Brutus, lies not in our stars that we are underlings, but in ourselves."
Success that is integrity based is yours for the taking, but you have to: 

believe it 

make a plan   

be consistent in your effort   

adjust your course for correction 

never, ever give up

The next time you think something can’t be done, remember Helen Keller.

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.” – Helen Keller