Why do you give cheap advice to other people

They don’t need your advice

When we are feeling good, and our lives are going well, we might try to help other people in worse conditions. We might give them unwanted advice.

The problem with giving advice no one asked for is that people won’t care about what you tell them, which will devalue what you say.

In psychotherapy training, one of the first things we are told is that we shouldn’t give advice to our clients for two main reasons.

The first is that people don’t listen to ideas that aren’t their own, and you don’t know if your advice applies to their particular life context.

If it isn’t your own life, most of the time you can’t tell other people what they should do, because only they know what really matters to them.

Keep your advice for people that want it

When you are trying to “help” people with your advice, besides that, it most certainly won’t have any effect, you will also waste precious energy.

If you have valuable expertise and use it to help people who need it, others will come to you.

Help other people figure things out by themselves

There is an ancient way of talking to people called Socratic questioning, which involves asking the right questions to make your interlocutor find the truth.

This is a much better way to try to help someone because you don’t really know where you will get with the questions.

You walk together with someone through dialogue towards the truth. Any resolution they get to will have a more significant impact than any idea you will tell them.

I used this method once when I talked with my sister about her relationship with her boyfriend. She was having a hard time, and she thought about breaking up with him. Our discussion went something like this:

Me: So, why are you upset?

Her: I don’t feel like I should continue with this relationship.

Me: What’s wrong?

Her: I don’t like the way he is treating me and I don’t think we love each other anymore

Me: If that’s how you feel, why do you continue?

Her: I am afraid of being alone

Me: Well, you have us, your friends, and don’t you think you can meet someone else who will love you and truly care about you?

Her: Well, I might but I am not so sure. I need to think more about this

This broke up several weeks after our discussion.

Our discussion didn’t lead to a direct change, but she clarified some of the things she thought about, and it helped her realize that even though they might break up, she still had people that cared about her.

Helping people reach a resolution or find the truth in a particular situation might simply be a consequence of being a good listener or conversation partner.

Nonetheless is good to keep these things in mind. Otherwise, you mind find yourself frustrated because no one listens to your advice, and you can’t help anybody.

We can’t really know what works for others, but we can engage in honest dialogue and walk together towards the truth.

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