Why does it seem like we always have good, constructive advice to give to our friends, family and co-workers but even though we might be in the same situations we can’t follow our own advice?
- Advice about encouragement
One of the reasons why we don’t follow our own advice is that we tend to focus on the positive qualities in our friends, and the negative ones in ourselves. We trust that our friend is amazing and talented and that their hard work will pay off. However, we lose that trust and confidence when it comes to us, even though we know best how much effort we gave.
I have a lot of creative friends that are either talented or work really hard on their skills and I am always the first to encourage them to go follow their dreams and to “make the dream work”. Yet, we don’t believe that we ourselves are creative or talented enough to be successful.
“We need to be our own cheerleaders.”
When our friends hit a low and aren’t successful we assure them that it was a one time thing and that there’s absolutely no valid reason to give up. Still, when we hit a bump in the road we start to overthink and worry. We waste a lot of our time with hypothetical questions. What if I fail? What if this doesn’t work out? We should start asking questions like “What if I succeed?” or “What if this works?”. We should also start to have the same confidence and trust in our skills like we do in our friends’. We need to be our own support system and cheerleaders.
2. Advice about overthinking
Often times when we make a mistake we think about it for a long time, days or even weeks sometimes. If there is one word to describe humans it is “flawed”. No person on this planet is perfect. We are designated to be flawed and to make mistakes. Our most important lesson is to live with it and accept it — not just in others but also in ourselves. We need to be more forgiving with ourselves.
Sometimes we make a gaffe and we feel like we want to disappear from the face of the earth forever. Even when the other person reassures us that there is nothing to worry about at all. We all have been on the opposite side of that situation as well. Someone makes a stupid comment and feels horrible but we can laugh about it and forget about it almost instantly. We need to stop overthinking about what others might think just because of a single action of ours. If the person sincerely reassures us that there’s nothing to worry about, then there is usually nothing to worry about. Besides that, how other people view us is always an accumulation of impressions — one small mishap is not going to change their entire view of us.
As I mentioned before, we are designated to be flawed. It is as clear as any physical law that we are bound to make mistakes. There is no way around it. So the only option we have is to go through it. The formula for that is quite simple and plausible:
a chance at being happy in life = accepting you are flawed + not overthinking your mistakes
Apply that formula to your daily life and see how you will live a much happier life.
3. advice about succeeding
Know that one friend that has the best dating advice but is single? Have you ever wondered how it is possible? The answer is quite easy:
Most of the time we know what we need to do, we just aren’t sure we’ll succeed. For some reasons we are programmed to think that if there isn’t a guaranteed success, it’s better not to try at all. And thus, we are scamming ourselves out of a lot of great opportunities in life.
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
This quote from Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” is one of the most valuable quotes I have come across. It taught me that failing doesn’t mean we have lost something, it means quite the opposite: we have gained experience.
Experience helps us make better and more well-founded decisions. Following this logic, failure leads us to success. Every time we fail, we gain experience. And every time we gain experience, our chances at success are growing. We need to embrace failure and view it as an integral part of becoming successful rather than it being the opposite of success.
