3 Types of Advice Seekers We Meet in Life

A life coach or a wise sage, we have played this role in life more than once. And we have given plenty of advice to friends, colleagues, and sometimes to strangers. Whenever someone reaches us for advice, all we focus on is giving them an answer. Ever wondered why with some people, your advice seems to fall on deaf ears? And they keep doing the worst possible thing despite your advice. The reason is that there are different types of people among these advice seekers; we should identify them correctly if we want to help them.

How to Advise Someone Effectively

Before helping any advice seeker, we should consider a few crucial factors without understanding that what we tell will simply make us sound intelligent and won’t help the person asking for advice.

When you are advising another person, what you should be concerned about first and foremost is the situation they are in. Understand that giving advice is not about you; therefore, you should make sure not to mirror any problems you have faced before into the current situation they face, even if it’s similar. They are not you, and how their thoughts and emotions work, the other parties involved, are different from yours, so the decision you took in your situation might not be suitable for them.

And make sure you analyse their situation both logically and emotionally. We tend to convince people with logic when we advise them regarding their decisions. Still, most people won’t be convinced by logic alone, and if they do, most of them won’t be stuck in situations requiring advice from others. Also, think of yourself, are you really full of logic when making decisions in life? Most humans are not, so only spitting out the logic to people who seek advice won’t do them any good; the only thing it does is make you sound intelligent. Instead, you should show them the possible good and bad outcomes that would happen if they follow emotions or logic. And encourage them to make the best decision.

3 Types of Advice Seekers

01. Seek and Listen type: These are the people who turn to us, hoping we will provide them with the guidance required to solve their problems. The important thing is that they will take our advice as an essential part of their decision-making process. And sometimes their entire decision will be based on the advice we gave.

02. Seek and Argue type: They will argue on every piece of advice we give with their own opinion. What they really require is not advice but the validations for the decisions they are about to take. And if we tell something other than what they expect, they will try their best to prove why their decision is the best one to take.

03. Seek but Listen with Emotions type: They know very well that they should seek advice in the situations they are stuck in and will reach out to someone they trust. But no matter what kind of advice we give, they will end up doing the worst thing possible. Unlike the 2nd type, these people do accept our advice to be helpful. Still, they are unable to follow them because emotions have clouded their judgments.

Understand the type Before Offering Advice

Identifying the different types of advice-seekers accurately will help you to understand how to advise them appropriately.

For the first(Seek and Listen) type, your advice can significantly influence their decision-making process. You should be extremely careful to give them the best advice with the knowledge and experience you have and mention whether you are willing to take responsibility if there is any adverse outcome from the decisions they take with your advice. We are not oracles, so it’s impossible to predict the future. Things could always go wrong no matter how careful we take our decisions; therefore, the best thing you could do when your advice concerns someone else is, to point that out to them beforehand.

With the second (Seek and Argue) type, Do not argue to prove your point; it won’t help them or you, Instead point out to them what you think is the best course of action they could take and ask them to compare that with what they feel to the best. And the rest is up to them to decide. Ultimately it’s not our life, and we can’t force people to take decisions we want even if we are right; the only thing we can do is to guide them and show them the best path possible, walking through that should be done by them.

When it comes to the third (Seek but Listen with Emotions) type, listen to what they are saying; most of the time, it’s not the advice they need but someone to listen to their situation. Talk with them, try to understand the situation they are in. The best thing you could do for them is to listen carefully and figure out their state of mind. Giving advice can come later. You can be helpful to them by listening to the story they have to tell and being patient with them. By doing so, you’ll be able to figure out a part of them that is not affected by emotions. Using that, you’ll be able to convince them to take a proper logical decision to make themselves better. For example, imagine a situation where someone is trying to forgive a cheating partner for the second time for emotional reasons; even if their emotions convinced them 95%, there would still be 5% that is not ready to forgive. Use that 5 to point them towards making a good decision.

At the end of the day, the decisions people will take affect them and the people involved with their situations. We should understand that humans are unpredictable creatures. Even if we show the absolute future with the correct decisions they should take, they might try to do something else, hoping for a different outcome. So when advising people, what we can do is to point them out what they are missing in their reasoning and a better path with what we know and understand. Point out all the good and bad outcomes as much as possible. Make them understand that you are telling things to the best of your knowledge and experience, and that is not the absolute answer.

— [Wide Writer] —

Originally published by the Author:https://medium.com/illumination/3-types-of-advice-seekers-we-meet-in-life-484eb4a6db59