5 Filters to Help You Choose the Best Advice Every Time
Be a student, not a follower
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Should you go to college or join a trade school? Is renting better than buying? Keto or vegan? Yoga or running? Netflix or HBO?
We have to make these and many other decisions every day but we don’t want to waste time on trial and error and we certainly don’t want to be wrong.
So we look for advice.
One of the biggest advantages of living in the 21st Century is access to information. We can get advice from the internet, celebrities, the news, our friends and family or the funny bartender at the local bar down the street.
This sounds like fun, right? We have all the information we need to live our best lives ever. Turns out that for almost every piece of advice, there is an equal and contradictory piece of advice. Each camp is 100% sure that they are right and they have their own set of gurus, teachers and even scientific studies to prove it.
This avalanche of information has made decision making a scary process. What if you take the wrong advice? What if you take advice that is not right for you? How do you even know if a piece of advice is good enough? Worry no more.
Here are 5 filters to help you choose the best advice, every time.
1. Are they doing it?
The sad truth is that most advice is given by people who don’t practice what they preach. So the first test of any piece of advice is if the advisor has actually put their advice into practice.
Untested advice is mostly peddled by people who want to make money from you by selling you a product or a service. It is also given by friends, family or the kind stranger at the mall, not out of malice but because they really want to help but have no experience with that particular problem.
Remember the fit tea craze that promised flat tummies and fit bodies just by drinking one cup of tea? These magical teas were advertised by celebrities and Instagram influencers with drool-worthy bodies implying that they got their bodies just from drinking these teas. However, research has shown that these teas are not effective for weight loss and might even have cause health problems. This shows that it is highly likely that these influencers and celebrities got their perfect bodies using other methods.
I learned this the hard way by trying numerous fad diets, concoctions, pills and potions in my weight loss journey. They all failed. In the end, I got useful advice from a friend whose physique I admire: exercise and healthy eating.
The modern world is full of charlatans and fake gurus who will sell or promote anything just to get some money. Always investigate to find out if your advisor is actually using the advice that they are giving you.
2. What do the results look like?
Once your advisor passes the first test, it’s now time for you to evaluate the results of that advice.
How do their lives look like as a result of practicing this advice? How is their mental health, financial status, physical fitness, and overall wellbeing? Ask yourself if that is the kind of outcome that you want for yourself.
You might be familiar with the current hustle porn craze that has been popularized by online celebrities. The main idea of this philosophy is that “unless you are suffering, grinding, working every hour of every day, you’re not working hard enough.”
While this approach might produce financial success it might not be for you if you went freelance so that you could spend more time with your family. I tried being a hustler who works 18 hours a day and it nearly killed me. I was constantly burnt out and I didn’t have time to spend on my hobbies or on taking care of my health. I now focus on living a healthy life full of joy, hobbies, and family as I build my freelance business.
There is more than one way of measuring success and what might be a successful life for others might not be successful for you. Ensure that the application of that advice succeeds the way you want to succeed.
3. Is the advice applicable to your unique situation?
A piece of advice might provide the success that you want and still not be a good fit for you because it does not fit your unique situation. The truth is that we come from different cultures and environments and we have unique financial, emotional and physical needs.
When I was starting my fitness journey, going for a run was recommended by online fitness experts and friends who had seen great results such as weight loss and improved concentration. I tried jogging many times and I failed miserably. Turns out, this advice was not applicable to my unique situation because I have arthritis which makes high impact exercises very painful.
For you, this might be your financial situation which makes perfectly good advice like investing in an assistant impractical. Yes, your business might need an assistant but you might have a special needs child or aged parents to take care of.
The best advice is the one that fits into your life and does not require radical changes. Anything else won’t work anyway and you will be left feeling like a broken loser because of your perceived inability to apply perfectly good advice.
4. Are there clear steps?
You must be able to apply a piece of advice before you can benefit from it. The problem is that most advice is vague. ‘Work hard,’ ‘follow your passion’ or ‘believe in yourself’ are common platitudes that often leave you thinking ‘okay but how?’
Crucially, look out for unseen privileges and hidden advantages that most advisors will not admit made things easier for them. When I was starting out my freelance journey, the common advice was to reach out to my network for my first clients. When I tried this, It didn't work out. Turns out, most of the people giving this advice had come from in-house marketing roles or companies with big marketing departments. Of course, their networks had marketing jobs for them or knew people in marketing. Hidden advantages and unseen privileges.
You’re more likely to successfully apply a piece of advice if there are clear steps on how to go about achieving your desired results. Find out if there are any pre-conditions that need to be fulfilled, the pitfalls that you should anticipate and the estimated timeline for achievement.
5. Allow for imperfect performance.
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” ― Bruce Lee
At some point, you will have to move from evaluating advice to actually putting it into practice.
If you have done your due diligence and the advice has passed all the filters mentioned above, allow yourself to experiment with the advice and see if it works for you. It will not work out perfectly the first time, but that’s okay, keep refining the process and adapting it to your unique situation until you get it right.
When I started exercising, the advice was to the gym in the morning but I felt so tired during the day so I tried evening workouts and they work better for me. I also modify some exercises to cater to my painful joints and I use the cross trainer instead of the treadmill. I have modified the advice of exercising every day and made it my own through trial and error.
Remember that you have to try out the advice first as is before you start modifying it.
The Takeaway
We take advice from different sources every day to help us with decision making. This advice can either help us achieve our dreams or make things even more difficult.
Here is a recap of the five filters to use so that you can choose the best advice:
- Are they doing it?
- What do the results look like?
- Is the advice applicable to your unique situation?
- Are there clear steps?
- Allow for imperfect performance.
Use these filters before you apply any piece of advice and always remember the words of Jim Rohn: ‘Be a student, not a follower.’
