Stop Asking for Advice!
Look to Yourself for Answers
Coach training taught me the value of not giving my opinion or advice. During the first week of class, we, the students, started coaching each other to apply the techniques we learned. It was intimidating, but what I found most difficult was not to say, “you should do x, or you should do y.” The tendency to give advice came so readily. But this was in direct opposition to what coaches do.
I was not alone, however. At the end of that peer coaching practice, our trainers had taken notes and debriefed us on how often they had heard advice. It was then that I realized that this coaching thing was going to be more challenging than I’d expected.
When someone shares a situation or a dilemma with you, you probably are tempted to give them a solution. This is normal. Life has conditioned us to see things as problems and provide solutions. This is true even if advice isn’t what someone is seeking in speaking of their circumstance. Our minds race to understand what we would do if this situation faced us.
When a person is in distress it can make us feel uncomfortable. We search for solutions to ease their discomfort and, by association, ours. This is another reason we tend to look for and offer solutions. This is normal, too.
Coach training illuminated the propensity I’d had to see situations shared with me in a general conversation as problems and how often I jumped into solution mode. This was true even when I knew very little about the person’s back story — their values, desires, or how they viewed the situation.
Now five years after graduation from coach training, I am unlikely to give advice, even if someone asks me for it. I have come to terms with the idea that what might be right for me is usually not suitable for someone else. Our values and goals, hopes and dreams, beliefs and opinions are too different. Instead, now I ask questions. These questions are often tricky because the person with whom I’m speaking hasn’t thought of the situation in those terms. They usually haven’t considered what they truly want from life and how responding one way or another to their situation will help them to or impede them from living that kind of life.
Answering questions meant to uncover your values is something that can be challenging because it’s hard to figure out what is most important for you to experience. If someone else could furnish ideas or solutions, it seems much easier than plunging into your heart of hearts and tapping into your inner compass. But asking someone for their advice, especially before considering your core values, what you are solving for, and possible options, can be truly disempowering.
The other day someone posted on an expat Facebook group looking for advice and job information. This person, I’ll call her Sarah, is considering moving to London or to Costa Rica as both places are appealing to her, but she wasn’t sure which one to pick. The fact that she asked for information I thought was good, but the call for advice rubbed my coach trained brain a little bit the wrong way. But I was curious about how people responded, so my eyes dropped to below the initial post and began perusing the comments. I was immediately sorry that I had.
This post was a call for help and support, but few comments were encouraging. Many of the opinions were cynical, bent on dampening the Sarah’s desire to move to London. The comments ranged from how expensive London is to how bad the job market is now to don’t move to London because how Brexit will turn out is so uncertain.
Sarah’s question centered on job information, so I thought perhaps she was concerned with finding a way to make a living in either place, which is reasonable. For me, however, the best reason to move to a dream location is that there is an undeniable pull that calls you to that place, and the appeal of living in a particular country or region is not typically a job.
The appeal is often to experience a slower-paced way of life, the weather, the sea, the culture, the people, the language, or even something that might be inexplicable. But many people’s dreams of living abroad go unrealized because people can’t see how they will make a living in their dream country. We can get trapped in a singular way of thinking about how we can support ourselves financially, and then be unable to see alternative methods that could help us live our dream.
I wanted to encourage Sarah, so I decided to make a comment that would empower her and get her thinking about the deeper reasons each place called to her. So I made the following comment: “You have a dream, a desire to move to Costa Rica or London. How wonderful! I don’t have info or advice on either. But I’m curious…you have reasons for wanting to move to both places. If you had a means to support yourself in both places and the possibility of living in either and visiting the other on vacations, which one feels more like home to you?”
This was my way of attempting to help her without advising. Even if I had information on those two places, I probably would not have shared it. When we ask for advice, we often don’t take it or resent it when it comes. We might not like what we hear or feel insulted by what other people think is best for us. At the end of the day, we can be more confused than when we started.
Getting advice can be disempowering.
To avoid this, look to yourself for the answers. Below are some questions to ponder to help you figure out what is best for you. Deep inside, you know what is right for you.
Questions to Ponder
1. First, ask yourself: What is my goal? What am I trying to solve for here?
2. Next, list all the ways you could achieve that goal.
3. Then place a star next to the options from #2 that feel good or okay to you.
4. Now, ask yourself: What values will following each starred solution honor and dishonor for you?
List the core values that would be honored and dishonored for each option.
5. Finally, sleep on your decision. Before you go to bed, tell yourself that you will have a clearer understanding of what is right for you in the morning. Then the next morning, ask yourself, “what action or direction feels right to you.”
Look to yourself for answers!
