The courage to take advice
Advice is a funny old thing, many of us are happy to give it, not so many of us like to act upon it. There are those of us who overindulge on advice-receiving; somehow, they are rewarded by the process of reviving advice, but they also feel they need more before even considering acting on any of it. Rather than following good advice and work towards their goals, they make the act of receiving advice the goal. But when did validation produce results? At some point in time, we all need to start putting the advice into action to be successful.
Those of us who hate receiving advice often think they know it all. They never seek advice and if they happen to receive it, they never follow it. Let’s be honest, these people are generally miserable people and often not that fun to be around. If we think we know it all, how can life be exciting? As a result, our growth is hampered and everything comes to a screaming halt. We can only go as far as we know, then what? To get from where we are today to where we want to be in the future, we need to learn to stop, listen, think and act more. One of the greatest joys in life is interacting with and learning from interesting people who can profoundly affect our lives. Why do so many of us let the years go by like ground-hog day? We stick to the same routine and do the same old shit, day in and day out and expect magic to happen.
There are those of us who only seek advice which is in line with our current beliefs. In other words, we are simply looking for validation, not objective advice. These advice/validation-seekers have the illusion of being open-minded, but in reality, they seek out those who agree with them and fail to learn anything new. Validation seeking is their goal rather than a genuine impetus for growth.
You are only going to learn so much from those who tell you what you want to hear and share the same points of view. Seek out those who can offer you something new and challenging.
When we receive great advice, we should get excited about the potential of putting it into action. Knowing that the advice can help us achieve our goals should be stimulating. However, at some point, we need to go from the anticipation and excitement stage to the acting stage. Once we start thinking about putting the advice into action, reality kicks in and we realise that following the advice is much harder than receiving the advice. Many of us receive great advice all the time, yet very few of us do anything about it. We are advice receiving addicts who always seek it, fail to act on it, and soon forget about it. The main problem with this mentality is we can quickly start to postpone our entire life and never get any closer to our dreams. When will we stop moving the goal posts further away?
Often when we start following the great advice we break plateaus, see personal growth, and enjoy life, while taking time to slow down and reflect. If we can be more open-minded our actions will become more efficient and life will become a more enjoyable place to be. Positive thinking will never take the place of hard work. Sure, being confident and telling yourself you can do something is great, but only if you are willing to put in the effort.
What great advice have you recently received? Have you started acting on this advice? If not today, when? Stop wasting time thinking life is great, and do something right now to change it. On the other hand, if you are a super negative cynic, then stop blaming the world for all your problems and seek out advice to start taking responsibility for your own life. Be honest with what you need and have the courage to apply advice that is useful.
