There are still some publications accepting stories that are from personal experience if the author goes into rigorous detail about that personal experience. The idea is to "show the reader how you learned this lesson."

I think that's great writing advice! But sometimes I don't want to share how I learned a lesson, at least not in great detail. The details are often painful and embarrassing in the extreme, and I never intended to become a confessional blogger. Sometimes, too, the details just don't make for a good story.

I've had some success pitching novel methodologies to publications if I am sure to embellish my writing with research-backed findings, which I now know are easy to find via scholar.google.com.