Why Giving Advice Is Not Always The Best Thing To Do

Advice.

It’s the perfect thing for that troubled person in your life who’s making the wrong decisions.

Whatever they’re doing and whoever they’re being, we can see the problem and we have the perfect solution.

Right?

Consider for just a moment that you might be wrong.

What is brilliant advice in the first place?

We spend all this time handing out our grand plan of action left and right, but we could do more harm than good.

As good as our intentions may be, unsolicited advice is often unwelcome.

Sometimes it’s more about our needs than the needs of others.

Before we open our mouths to speak up to others, we have a few things we need to consider.

We’re Hypocrites

Having a dialogue is one thing, but handing out advice that you yourself should practice?

That’s a touchy matter.

We all have things to work on and we’re trying to handle them the way we see best.

However, commenting on someone else’s baggage when we’re carrying our own can make us appear as though we feel superior.

Let’s be honest—when we’re handing out advice, we’re almost always thinking we’ve got the magical solution to all their problems, so we do feel superior.

No matter how much we may know something, we will forget our own wise advice in the thick of things.

We’ve got to remember that we’re all hypocrites in one way or another, so we should drop all our lip-flapping so we can do more listening and contemplating.

It Can Enable Or Disable

People need to be lifted up, encouraged, and believed in.

You may feel that you’re doing this by giving advice, but think about what the person heard.

You’re telling them what they should do and how they should do it.

That implies not only that they cannot see this, but it also implies that they don’t have what it takes to accomplish it themselves.

We give advice to show support, but the best way for us to support someone is to aid them in resolving things on their own.

Most of us want to be successful in life, but many of us don’t know that we’re capable of it.

We believe we have limits, and until we push ourselves beyond them, we’ll never know what we’re truly capable of.

We’re Making Assumptions Based On Our Own Experience

We think we know what’s going on, but there’s so much we don’t understand.

For starters, many of us cannot look below the surface by getting the details.

We hear the basics and we immediately jump to making assumptions, generalizing, and giving advice.

Thoughts and insights are all relative to our experiences.

While our stories can appear similar in ways, there’s sure to be 100x more differences than similarities.

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

People like to think we know what’s going on and why, but we almost never have a full grasp of someone else’s situation.

There are hundreds of people, events, and situations affecting hundreds of other people, events, and situations.

Because of that, we can never know what’s going on inside someone’s head.

When it comes down to it, reality is really a matter of perspective that’s based on the subconscious beliefs we developed from our experiences.

To advise someone on something when we’re missing hundreds, thousands, or even millions of bits of insightful information can be far more irritating than helpful.

Advice Isn’t Their Greatest Need

There’s no doubt that we can save ourselves time, effort, and pain by hearing the wisdom of another’s experience, but sometimes it just won’t cut it.

Anyone going through a hard time is caught up in an equally hard state of mind and emotions.

We can offer all the advice in the world, but as long as they’re feeling miserable, our words will probably fall on deaf ears.

Our choices are determined by our behavior, which are determined by our emotions and state of mind.

Look at the “poor choices” of any given person and beneath their actions, you’ll see someone that’s desperate to feel supported, accepted, and understood.

So as much as we want to throw out a magic fix, the best way to help someone is to get them feeling better so they can shake off their disabling doubts and negativity.

Pulling that off doesn’t require money or preaching—just open ears and mindful observation.

Everything Happens For A Reason

Hopefully, we can all look back on our lives and see how life’s challenges were necessary thanks to the great lessons that came from them.

This applies to others, too.

While an outsider to a situation will see problems that may be invisible to the person actually in the situation, our insights will not be a 24-hour cure.

Their thoughts and behaviors are leading them down a very specific path.

Until they change them, they’re going to be stuck walking the same dark and bumpy road.

It’s painful to watch someone go through a misery they could change, but sometimes it’s just what has to happen.

However hard their journey may be, they’re going to be stuck walking that same path until they see reason to change direction.

Breakdowns become breakthroughs, and that’s what sparks true life changes.

The hardships they experience are what will get them to stop and question what we’re doing; and that can get them to stop and pause and consider finding a better path.

Sure, someone else could come along and offer a ride as “help,” but once the ride is over, that person will head to the same destination as before.

When it comes down to it, advice can be enormously discouraging and inhibiting.

The only person who knows what they need to do in life is the very person living that life.

Instead of telling people what we think is right or wrong, we should encourage them to determine those things for themselves.

By letting them be who they are, we can help them see that everything they need for success has been within them all along.

That there is empowerment in its truest and most powerful form.