Giving advice is wrong? You must be joking!!

How many of you find it hard to resist the temptation to give solutions. How ironic – we may not have solutions for our own problems but we don’t fail to give advice to others. Rather than being a good listener and understand what another person is saying & feeling, we are more engaged in giving solution to the other person.

So do you know what is wrong with giving advice? Well, in the process of giving advice, unconsciously you are giving a message to another person that he/she doesn’t have the resources to solve their own problems. You are almost paralyzing their own problem solving ability. This gives them a feeling of “not being good enough or capable enough”.

The best way to give an advice is not give an advice at all; rather just be a good listener.

So what do I do instead of giving advice?

Instead of telling people “here is what you need to do”. It is best to keep shut, listen to them. Help them talk their heart out, so that they can articulate their own problem. Better than giving a response, is to help them talk to you by using open-ended questions and encouraging the person to think. In the conversation, the best suitable outcome for the person would become self evident.

This way, you are also equipping the person to find their own out and most importantly, believe in themselves.