For as long as I can remember, I’ve been someone that others felt they could come to and seek advice from. I have always been a listener when it came to life, friends, school, work, or boy problems. As a listener, you are able to have a clear view on the situation and are able to give advice on how you would handle a situation if you were in their shoes. But for some reason when it’s time for you to actually handle the situation on your own, that’s never the case.
There are many times when I can give advice on something because in my mind I know it’s the obvious thing to do. You can grasp a good sense of how they should move forward in a way that is going to help them, make things easier, and for them to grow as a person. But when it comes to yourself, it’s nearly impossible to take your own advice.
When it comes to our own personal situations in life, we have a tendency to overthink everything. We like to come up with multiple scenarios in our head of the possible outcomes of all the advice that we use, and it results in us taking no advice at all. It even can leave us more confused than before. When you seek an opinion from an outsider, they are able to see things clearly and for some reason it just feels better when it comes from another person. It gives you validation that you are approaching the situation in the right way.
Many times in my life I’ve ran to friends for advice on something that was hard on me. In my heart, I knew what the right thing to do was but sometimes you just need an extra set of ears to listen. It’s natural to want to have multiple opinions on a situation.
The best thing to do if you find yourself in this situation is to try to reverse the rolls. Take on the situation as if you are hearing it for the first time, and whatever comes to your mind is probably the right thing. Before taking action, it’s natural to want to make sure that it’s the right decision but a lot of the time it’s best to take action, rather than no action at all.
For someone who struggles to take their own advice, try to remember what you want as the end result for you friends and family when they come to seek help. You want them to be happy, and to overcome certain situations. You should want nothing less than that for yourself, too. In today’s world, it can be hard to make our own happiness a priority or to put our needs before the needs of others because it is known to be selfish.
Selfish doesn’t have to mean that you only care about yourself, it can mean you care enough about yourself to make your happiness a priority.
Life is going to throw many situations at you that can be overwhelming, exhausting, and simply terrifying. It can cause major anxiety knowing that you have big decisions to make or that you are not happy with something in your life and looking to make a change. Decisions tend to make people nervous, and I think it’s important to embrace change. Your life is constantly changing, and big decisions are part of what got you to where you are today. Remain confident in yourself that you are capable of knowing what the best decision is for you. If you make a decision and it ends up being the wrong one, you have the power to turn that mistake into a learning experience and find comfort moving forward from that.
Take a deep breath, relax and remember what you would tell a friend if they were going through that situation, because I promise you that you would do anything to help them be happy. Now it’s time to make that person you.