Why I Stopped Giving Unsolicited Advice
I have long felt qualified to give the best advice.
After all, I have been to therapy most of my life. I have a strong passion for self-improvement. I consume only the best written and spoken content on how to live well, how to work well, and how to feel well.
So, I responded to other people’s concerns with advice.
Until someone called me out.
She told me I was too solution-focused. Then, another person told me I was insensitive. Soon thereafter, a close friend told me I was a bad listener.
I shared my distress with a therapist. She listened, smiled, and shared the words that would change everything.
She said, “Advice is the lowest form of empathy.”
Indeed, empathy means listening. It means seeking to understand the person within the context of their situation. It means giving attention to their unique feelings, thoughts, and experiences, which are entirely separate from the ones of the listener.
Advice removes the emphasis from these experiences. Instead, the focus is given to the quick-fix solution of the listener — one that is based on their own, more important feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
Thus, it creates an unequal exchange.
One party seeks to share something, and the other seeks to fix it.
One party seeks to be heard, and the other seeks to be obeyed.
Yes, advice can make a positive difference. Sometimes there is a perfect solution to a specific problem. But it needs to be given under the right conditions, where one asks for advice and the other provides it. It needs to happen as an equal exchange. It needs to be warranted.
And unsolicited advice is never warranted.
It is well-intentioned, yes.
It is meant to communicate, “I want to help. I have a solution to your problem.”
But instead, it communicates, “What you are feeling and thinking is not okay. You need to escape this state of yours and pull yourself together. You need to fix yourself.”
Worse yet, it is given without the consent of its receiver. And no matter how good your intentions are, the result is the same: it signals to that person that you value their potential to change more than their current, vulnerable self.
Besides, it poses a logical solution to an emotional issue.
Emotions do not respond to logical solutions.
They cannot be changed nor manipulated if you just follow a piece of advice. The only way to move forward is to move through the emotions, not evade them in favor of logical quick-fixes.
Ironically, therefore, advice might be the worst solution to most problems.
Because you are not really listening if your main motive is to talk.
You are not really seeking to understand if you are trying to be understood first.
This is why I stopped giving unsolicited advice.
And ever since I did, people have become more trusting of me.
They trust me more. They share more. They listen more.
Because I know now that it is not about the advice and its impact on the future. It is about the sharing of emotions, of the truths here and now.
Admittedly, this is a lesson that takes time and practice to learn. Perhaps you are wondering where to go from here — all this talk about empathy and understanding.
My advice?
Start listening. And stop giving unsolicited advice.
