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Home » Lose Weight Fast » We Get, and Give, Lots of Bad Advice. Heres How to Stop. – The New York Times

Here, advice-givers can help. When people come to us for advice, we can resist the urge to give them a single recommendation. People rarely need to hear our conclusion. They benefit from hearing our thought process and our perspective on the relevant criteria for making the choice. The most useful advice doesnt specify what to do; it helps people see blind spots in their thinking and clarify their priorities.

Now, when students come to office hours, I start by asking them what they want. Are they looking for me to validate a decision theyve already made, challenge their assumptions or help them think through the considerations? Then, if I share a lesson from my own experience, I make sure to qualify that it may or may not apply to them. Heres how I landed on my career. Which aspects of my approach make sense for you, and which ones dont?

At some point, you have probably noticed that youre wiser when giving advice to others than you are in making decisions for yourself. Youre not alone. In psychology, its called Solomons paradox, and it often happens because we have more distance from other peoples problems than our own.

When making our own career choices, we tend to zoom in on all the ways that the options differ. Ive seen students make Excel spreadsheets comparing jobs on 23 dimensions, which is an easy way to get stuck in the weeds. When were giving advice to others, were more likely to zoom out to see the big picture. Instead of trying to weigh all the factors, we base our recommendations on the two or three most important factors.

The lesson here is that one of the most effective ways to get better advice is to give it. Sure enough, psychologists find that our reasoning becomes wiser when we think about our own problems from a third-person perspective.

I very often have to remind myself to take my own advice, Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and a professional advice-giver, told me on WorkLife. I know what the right thing to do is. I dont always do it.

Advising others doesnt just help us make better decisions it also leaves us more motivated to follow through. In one experiment, when high school students were randomly assigned to give advice to younger students on how to stay motivated in school, their own report card grades improved.

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We Get, and Give, Lots of Bad Advice. Heres How to Stop. - The New York Times

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Home » Lose Weight Fast » We Get, and Give, Lots of Bad Advice. Heres How to Stop. – The New York Times