The Value of Experience

I don’t know about you but I have been told what I need to do all my life and quite frankly it has grated on me for a long time. People are so quick to tell me, 'you should do this', and realistically they have not always been right, in fact an awful lot of the time what they think I need to do has been no help what so ever.

So please if you’re advising someone don’t say ‘this is what they need to do’ suggest a few things that might help and let them make their own mind up. For Pete’s sake it doesn’t matter if you are right or not because if the person doesn’t feel it’s going to help then it isn’t going to. Take it from me if you go into a situation angry or affronted that you have been told to do something you don’t feel better for it. I get that it isn’t always easy to see people not doing things that you feel will help but they need to make their own mind up to do them.

It’s strange that I have had so many people say I told you so when they feel aggrieved by my disinterest in their advice but they haven’t really understood why I have not taken it.

 And lets’ be honest there are several reasons but first and foremost…it didn’t feel like advice.

When you tell someone, ‘this is what you need to do,’ they will often feel like you have just tried to control them, not only that they may well feel like you just treated them like a child or an idiot who didn’t know what was best for themselves. And really it doesn’t matter if you are right or not it feels disrespectful. It feels like you’ve just put them down and people really don’t like that. I certainly never did.

In the really down periods of my life I can say that I turned away from people who told me what to do and favoured those who offered choices, offered me ideas of what might help. I listened to those who found the time to say how it had helped them and let me know that it was my choice. They were the ones who didn’t try to force the issue and get upset if todays’ advice was ignored. They were the ones who offered me encouragement and hope that life did not have stay like this, the ones who let me do what I felt was best of me. Yes I lost friends and really I can understand why people lost patience with me and didn’t want to be around someone who was up and down like a yo-yo, someone who was so erratic that it upset them. I am sorry you had to live with me but I am glad that you did and I am glad also that I didn’t just do as you told me.

I believe that people should make their own minds up about what they want in their lives and how they want to live no matter what.

 You want to kill yourself or are otherwise insane then that’s a different matter but in life we should all choose for ourselves. Even if that choice isn’t so great.

Look I’m not saying advice is bad but it really does matter how you give it. And it does matter how it is taken. Like I said I have had people turn round and say I told you so to me and I have felt that it was inappropriate and very unhelpful. It’s like thanks for saying 'if you’d listened to me when I told you what to do you’d have been fine ages ago'. And to these people I would like to say.

I think you’ve missed something about people and about me. I may appear like the most stubborn person on the planet, but I’m not, I’m just trying to find out what I want. I don’t want to do as I’m told like a naughty child I want to learn to work out what I need. And in this I may be a bit slow but that’s okay.

When we’re kids we try things, we over extend and we get hurt and we take that experience on to what we do next and this goes for handling our emotions to. We take what we experience and try and make sense of it for the next time. When you tell someone to do something there is no experience and as I have said people can often feel resentful in you doing it and that can cloud and diminish the good effect that taking the advice could have.

 Many of the things that help have small effects and if there’s even a small amount of anger that effect may well be obscured. The person hasn’t learn, ‘oh yeah actually that feels nice!’ The battle is lost and they will not do it again unless instructed. I guess many may not have felt as controlled as I did in my youth but it doesn’t really change that people find it hard to be told what to do.

Giving advice is an art and the art is in helping people really experience what is happening in it’s fullest to find out for themselves what they want to do. Many people need more than simply an idea as trying new things can feel like a great leap into the unknown something that may scare them greatly. As I say it was often a little encouragement and to feel free to choose what to do that gave me the impetus to try or do what was suggested. It was this encouragement and support that allowed me to break free of what I had been doing and see things differently.

So next time you’re tempted to tell someone what to do please thing again just for a moment about how to bring out the enjoyment or relaxation etc they might get from it and put it into what you say.

 Help them see what you get from doing something and you never know instead of ignoring you they may well try it. But even if they don’t you may well have encouraged them to seek your advice or someone elses' and it may make a difference next time.