I’ve only ever done anything for one of four reasons:
It’s fun. 2) I’m getting [del]laid[/del] paid. 3) Someone has a gun to my head. 4) I’m obsessive-compulsive about it.
That last one may explain why I keep walking into traffic. Or maybe that’s just because I’m listening to my iPod and get distracted.
I mean, I listen to advice. I may agree with it. But I’ll still usually follow the path of least resistance. If your advice involves a path with resistance on it, then I’m not doing what you’re saying. I’ll go back to doing what I was already doing, in the same wrong way that I was already doing it. Because it’s easier.
I mean, I’m caricaturing. But if you ever give me advice, and I don’t follow it, keep this in mind.
I follow advice if I get it at the right time. I tend to live in a “planning-doing-evaluating” process. Advice is greatly appreciated if I’m in planning or evaluating mode, but if I’m in the middle of doing mode, you should just shut up and go with it. I’m generally up front with people about this. This is how I work for everything from “what’s for dinner tonight?” to “how should I plan for retirement?” If I’m going to assess my retirement portfolio next quarter, then I’m going to assess it next quarter. Period. The end. If we decided on burgers for dinner, I really don’t care that you have a last-minute craving for Chinese. We have a plan, we’re following it.
All of this is one reason I rarely ask for help with DIY home improvement projects. Everyone thinks they should show up on Saturday morning with advice. I have to find some tactful way to say “Sorry, folks, but the planning phase is done. We all showed up this morning because we’re now in execution mode. If you had advice, I needed it last week when I asked for it. I will be evaluating our progress on Sunday evening. Until then, shut up and get to work.”
Depends on who it’s from and what it’s about. I don’t really get unsolicited advice because I’ve mostly got my shit together and everyone in my social circle has figured that out. Sometimes I’ll ask for advice from subject matter experts on specific topics, and I definitely consider what they tell me. Otherwise, every great once in a while some random stranger or distant family member will try to give me some tips, but all I get on my end is a slight buzzing sound. It’s weird.
At one end there’s fact-based advice from knowledgeable people intending to be helpful. This doesn’t happen a lot. As in quite rare. Always appreciated.
At the other end are clueless twits who don’t know jack and are in full on smug mode. This happens way too often.
Sometimes we’ve been given the same, good, sound advice repeatedly in different iterations. Then, one day, at just the exact moment you’re in the open minded state required, someone puts it in words that seem to just shine for you. Bam!
Advice received in this fashion, always has impact and staying power for me.
Then there is advice that really pisses me off. I resent the implications, the wording, the tone, feel disrespected and hurt. Of course, this almost always proves to be advice I actually and truly NEED to hear. And I do. It just takes me a little time to get passed being pissed and moving on to, “Why is this upsetting me so much?” I’ll get there, but it could take a while.
And then there is something I once read a long time ago, about the nature of giving advice, from some psychology book, I think. It basically said we never, ever give advice that we ourselves don’t actually need to take! I never give advice that I don’t reflect on that. I have found it is very often, very true.
I am a combination of all of the above but mostly stubborn and do what I want sometimes to my own detriment when viewed from the outside but I don’t see it that way. I am perfectly willing to lose a job, relationship or even a marriage without any regret if I believe that people are trying to be controlling, nagging or nitpicky rather than genuinely loving, caring or helpful.
I am very capitalistic in my view of most types of relationships except biological family and I don’t have much of a conscience when it comes to dissociating myself from anyone that I don’t completely care for. I don’t like most people speak to me directly about anything that isn’t completely necessary let alone lecture me about something personal. That is quick way to get excommunicated from the Church of the Shagnasty.
However, there are a few people that I will listen to because I either respect them in general or I know that they have gone through something similar that I am dealing with and I am confident that they have my best interests at heart. That is the biggest reason that I find professionals like psychologists to be worse than useless for me. There isn’t much of a chance that I will respect them as a person or what they are saying so it is just wasted time and money. OTOH, I do listen to my primary care doctor very carefully because he went out of his way to help save my life a number of years ago when he didn’t strictly have to, he knows my whole history and he truly cares. I will also listen to the Big Boss at work because he is extremely accomplished and obviously knows what he is doing but he isn’t my direct boss. The ones under him are decent enough but I don’t really listen to them because I am supposed to know way more than they do about my job. That is the general level of trust that I use as a general benchmark.
I think I can take in advice reasonably well, but I expect that, as has been said, timing is important. It is especially helpful if advice is offered before it is given - that is, something like this: “I can show you a faster/better/cheaper way to do that, if you’re interested,” offered as neutrally as possible. For one thing, it’s hard to refuse that; for another, it does give one a semi-graceful out if absolutely necessary - “Thanks, I’m almost done, maybe I’ll get back to you on that if I have do this again” or something like that.
It also is important that I have some idea that the advice offerer may actually have some knowledge or experience that I don’t have. If it’s coming from some dime-store sidewalk “expert” then I’m not going to be very interested (although I hope I would at least listen long enough to figure out if there is any value at all). So maybe he is telling me that the hammer on the table is going to fall on my head if I don’t move it; or maybe he is telling me that I should be using an impact driver instead of a screw gun. Those are very different things. The first one I will listen to and check out; the second probably not so much.
I take it well in that I listen and don’t argue, and I seriously consider it if it’s from a reliable source (if, for example, I get parenting advice from a 21-year-old with no children and no experience working in childcare, and no younger siblings, that goes in one ear and out the other). I don’t always follow it, but I don’t knee-jerk ignore it.
As far as listening carefully and attentively, I’ve learned that it goes faster if you don’t argue and don’t discuss. Sometimes discussion is warranted-- sometimes the advice is very good, for example, advice on making a cross-country drive I’ve never made before from someone who has made the drive, or advice on fixing our plumbing from my FIL (may his memory be for a blessing), who was a contractor, in which cases the advice was sought, and questions and discussion are very valuable.
When advice is unsolicited, the best thing is to nod and smile, say thank you, and go on your way. There’s always the possibility it will be helpful, and if it isn’t, it’s over quickest this way.
Ditto for criticism.
Sigh Some of the worst unsolicited advice I ever got was to rub tobacco on my dog to keep fleas off of her. She didn’t have a flea problem, I hadn’t mentioned one, and the guy giving the advice wasn’t even part of the conversation I was having when he kind of just wandered over. This was when I worked showing movies, and so a lot of the people who came into the movies thought of themselves as my buddy, and would come up and talk to me while I tried to remember where I’d met them. I smiled and nodded and never gave my dog nicotine poisoning.
If it’s useful information from a reliable source and there’s are good reason why that source would have useful information then yeah. Mostly though, advice comes in the form of anecdotes that may or may not be worth following so I don’t give it too much weight. Sometimes there’s advice that doesn’t seem too solid but I’ll keep it mind anyway, the circumstance where it’s useful may come around.
It depends on the advice, the person giving it, and the reason I need it. I can think of times I’ve said “great idea, I’ll give that a try”, and times I’ve thought “I’ve already done that a dozen times and it didn’t work”.
Although I’ve noticed that I often don’t even follow my own advice. I can tell someone what they need to do, because it’s the same that I need to do. But it doesn’t mean that I* do *that thing. For the reasons stated in the OP. That would be, you know, hard. And I’m lazy.
You know that thing you said about how some people just don’t get maths? Because they’re just not wired for it?
Do you think taking advice could be like that for some people? I have this friend. She’s awesome. I’ve known her since, like, practically kindergarten. She’s great at giving advice, but she sucks donkey balls at taking it. You just cannot get things into her head. There’s just a blank stare. Either she figures something out for herself, or she’ll never figure it out. When it comes to helping people, she’s like a bodhisattva. She’s very giving. But it’s like a one-way thing. It’s a flow that only works in one direction.
You can lead her to water. But even then she’s probably just going to look at you and wonder what she’s supposed to do with the water. But then, later, you’ll be watching her building her own aqueduct and inventing indoor plumbing from scratch. Um, yeah. The rest of us already had that. Don’t get me wrong, though, thats a very impressive job right there building that. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s like watching someone being incredibly dumb and incredibly smart at the same time.
The problem there is that you’re kind of screwed, because there’s no way to even give her advice on how to take advice. I’ve learned to just leave her alone and assume she’ll figure it out. She certainly has so far. And then she’ll come over and explain it to me. Plus a million other things that I hadn’t figured out, and actually needed to know.