You are (Probably) Terrible at Giving Advice
I used to think that I was very good at giving advice. I would meet up with friends, we would share our issues, and we would give each other advice about what we should do about our problems. I thought this was what it looked like to be a good friend, but I have recently realized that I may not have been as good a friend as I thought I was.
People give advice to each other all the time, and we probably don’t think about this kind of transaction very deeply. It’s just something that we do naturally, as a part of the conversations that we have. This week, I have been thinking about why we are not as good at giving advice as we think we are, and why we should consider trying to introduce a different kind of flow to our conversations with friends, family, and colleagues.
Say, for example, that I have a friend who is having trouble making a decision about something. I would assume that if she brought that issue to me, she wants me to give her some advice about which option is the best, based on what she has told me, what I know about the topic, and what I know about her. That is how these conversations have usually gone in the past, and if I was able to say my opinion eloquently, and my friend said something like, “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that,” I considered my job as a friend done. However, if she has been thinking about her problem for a number of…
