I don’t often listen to people’s advice because I find it hard to accept advice from someone who doesn’t know the whole picture. And in most cases, you are the only one who truly knows the full picture of your situation.
But here’s something I realized recently: the hardest advice to take isn’t advice from other people; it’s your own.
I was writing a post about the importance of setting boundaries last week. After I finished writing it, I thought, “That’s actually good advice.”
But here’s the interesting part: I have a serious problem with setting boundaries myself.
It’s easy for me to set boundaries when I don’t personally know someone, and that’s the perspective I wrote the post from. What I completely overlooked was how much I struggle to set clear boundaries in other areas of my life.
If I simply followed the advice I had just written in those areas, I would probably see much better results.
When I started thinking about that, I realized that the hardest advice to listen to is our own. Most of the time, when we want to achieve something, we already know what we should be doing to get there, but we only do it at 50% effort or less.
Let me give you an example.
People regularly ask me how they can find virtual assistant clients. Very often, when I ask, “How many proposals have you sent this week?” they say something like, “I haven’t started sending proposals yet,” or “I’m still practicing my skills,” or “I can’t afford to buy connects.”
Before I say anything else, I already know they understand that sending proposals is how you find clients. I also know they understand that buying connects on Upwork isn’t the only way to send proposals.
So even though you know what you should be doing, your mind subconsciously makes excuses to avoid doing the things that feel uncomfortable.
That’s why it’s easy to give other people advice about procrastination, shiny object syndrome, or instant gratification. But if we honestly look at the challenges we’re struggling with, there’s a good chance one or more of those things are contributing to the problem.
So take a minute and look at the biggest challenge in front of you. Knowing everything you know about yourself, what advice would you give yourself?
I’m confident that if you think long enough, you’ll realize you already know the next step. The real question is whether you’re willing to follow your own advice and do what you need to do to overcome the challenge.
Cheers 🥂
