Note: This article is based on a blog post by Tyler Tervooren, in which he tells us about his experience of not always relying on the advice of others.
Wherever you stand, there is an issue that we all face: we have a tendency to seek out and pay attention to sound advice. I've stated that good advice is a problem, so you didn't read the title incorrectly. Good advice seems harmless and helpful too, but there is a very dark side to it that you may not be aware of.
When you're trying to make a big change in your life, it can get a little intimidating, and the natural reaction is to seek advice from people you trust, but you need to be very careful about what you ask for and even more careful about whom you ask for this advice from. Even well-intentioned advice can derail your plans completely without you even realizing it.
My favorite tip for asking for advice is not to ask for it
The more unique, interesting, and meaningful your idea is to you, the less likely it is that anyone else will help you with it. The world is never ready for great ideas, and it never has been. They always pop up, and they may be presented to us by artists who show us what we want and need before we know we want or need it.
This is what makes it so difficult to understand special ideas before we have touched, experienced, seen, or heard them. What advice can someone give you if they can't even conceive of your plan?
When it comes to your own unique ideas, good advice is really bad. So don't ask for it
Good advice is based on prior beliefs. It takes into account what has been done before and your perceived ability to accomplish something, but unique ideas always break these rules. It is implemented despite all the problems and difficulties that may face people who are not fully qualified to achieve it.
You can actually get a good idea, so if you want to test your idea to see if it's really great or not, just ask yourself these two questions:
- Has this idea worked previously?
- Am I qualified to achieve or succeed in it?
My basic rule is that answering “no” to both of them does not guarantee anything. As for the affirmative answer, it may be a good indication that it needs more work. This is just my advice, and remember what I said about the rules of experience, previous beliefs, and the like.
Execution time
The most important thing you can do when you have a great idea is to implement it. Testing is the only way you will know if it works or not. The problem is that the good advice you get from your friends and family will be against it.
They care about you and don't want to see you fail, so their good advice is to be careful, think it through, and make sure you really want to try this idea, but without committing to anything. This kind of good advice can ruin even the best plans.
Ignore good advice at all costs
When looking for the best advice for your risky new idea, it's really important not to place too much weight on the advice you get from others and start listening to yourself instead. You know yourself better than anyone else, so why don't you start asking yourself for advice?
Grab a pen and write down the questions and ideas you might have if you wanted to pitch your idea to a friend, then answer them. Do it from your point of view, and give yourself the best advice you know on how to stick to it and implement it successfully. Keep in mind that you are trying to find the best way to implement this idea. Not whether you should refrain from doing it; trust your instincts and listen to what they tell you.
Remember that your "lizard brain" or the amygdala, which is a part of the brain located within the temporal lobe of the brain, has a special function, which is sensory perception and feelings, and it is also responsible for doing simple tasks, such as love, eat, and so on. It is found in humans and animals, and it will try hard to delay you or even push you to give up. This is the first measure; your intuition will stand behind it. So you have to go through the experience and remove doubt until you trust your intuition and are able to listen to what it says.
Visualize the best-case scenario that could happen, give yourself advice on how to achieve it, and work through the problems step by step to the end goal until you have something you can do now without having to wait for anything else to happen.
The worst-case scenarios you have in mind will never happen, and planning for them is like planning for failure. So don't spend too much time thinking about it. This is the advice you need, and when it comes to your unique ideas, only you can give advice.
Share your plan
It may seem that the point of what I say is to keep your plan a secret, but that is not at all what I am trying to get at. You are the only one who deserves to be heard when it comes to getting advice about your big plans, but the plans themselves should be shared freely.
It's important to tell people, especially those close to you, what you're doing, but don't ask them if you should or not. In the meantime, your friends and family can provide support you can't get anywhere else, and if your great idea makes a huge impact in their lives, they have a right to know this, but they have no right to prevent you from doing it. Maintaining this balance can be difficult, but it is necessary.
Don't give others "good advice"
If you've read the article up to this point, you've probably noticed that a lot of it sounds like advice not to ask for advice. Well, it is, and you didn't ask me to.
That is precisely why you do not listen to them. Even though you might fully understand this, not everyone who seeks your advice does. It is risky to seek advice from others on your own original ideas, but it is reckless to do so when it comes to theirs.
Don't allow yourself to be the one giving that destructive good advice. I try to be honest when someone asks me if I think their idea will work, but I also make sure they understand that I am not responsible for how well they can be cool.
Although it's important to trust your own abilities, it's equally important to teach others how to do the same by showing them how to offer and put their own advice into practice. So if my advice is not for you, just disregard what I have said; you are the best person to decide what is best for you. So don't let me get in your way.
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