There are many general advice people throw around from time to time. For instance, we were told that what an elder sees while sitting down, a youngster will not see it even if he climbs the top of a palm tree. What this fails to tell is the level of experience of the elder in question compared to the young person. Most of us were told to go to school, focus on our studies; do not turn to the left or to the right. Graduate, get a good job. Then have a wonderful life. The adviser here may have the best intention, but you’ll agree that one advice does not apply in every situation. And following some of this generic advice can take your life in the wrong direction.
So what are some general advice we get that may not apply to your own situation? Continue reading this article to find out more. Understanding number 3 and 7 can change your life.
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Table of Contents
1. Never Give up
This is genuine advice that will apply in many life situations. But imagine you are in a job that is mentally draining. Your boss derives pleasure in attacking your self-esteem. You spend the first 4 hours of your day in traffic to work and another four hours back home. Worst of all, at the end of the month, you can barely pay your bills. You can decide to keep grinding because you believe you should never–give up. But also remember that you have the option to give up on this job, this boss and look for another.
Another example is being in a wrong or negative relationship. Giving up may just be the best decision to make. So if you know in your heart that something is not going to work, if you no longer want something or if you feel like you are heading in the wrong direction, never give up may not be the advice for you.
2. Stay focused on one thing
Another valid advice; but it depends on who it’s given to and at which stage they are in life. If you are still young and trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, you want to try out as many opportunities as comes your way to discover your area of interest. Or if you get a job in a startup company with a small team, you are likely to find yourself joggling from one department to another. When you get more clarity with what you want to do with your life, you will find that all the different experiences will play to your advantage. Steve Jobs calls this ‘connecting the dot’. He attributes the highly impressive visual of the Mac computer to a random calligraphy class he curiously walking into. So at the entry-level of your career life, you may want to try out different things intend of just focusing on one thing you are not even interested in.
3. Follow your passion (AKA do what you love and the money will follow)
The problem with this advice is that if followed religiously, it may cause you to lose out from opportunities. People don’t respond to what you want, they respond to what value you offer. A successful business woman told the story of how she started. She was passionate about catering and baking and started a catering business which was not growing. One day she noticed that there was a high demand for cold water from road users under the scorching sun. She started chilled sachet water business, and later expanded to other related products. The business grew into a multimillion-dollar company. The difference was that instead of just following her passion, she followed an opportunity passionately. An opportunity, in this case, is simply an avenue to bring value to an urgent market need. So if you want to make a significant impact in the marketplace while making a fortune, don’t just follow your passion or do what you love, follow opportunity passionately. And develop the skill to maximize that opportunity.
4. Failure is not an option
If you want to grow and gain more experience in life you must accept failure as a possible option. Failure is always an option and yet you’ll be fine. You can fail and still be ok. If you only do things you are sure you will not fail at, you will never grow beyond your comfort zone. Instead of accepting that ‘failure is not an option”, consider that “failure is not the only option”. Or Failures may happen, but we will keep trying. A wise man once said that success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. That’s like saying “I’m willing to keep failing until I start succeeding”.
5. Fake it till you make it
If you want to BE successful and not to LOOK successful, don’t take this advice. In the world of social media today, people are more interested in looking rich than actually having a rich life. Okay, I admit this has been around since before social media, but it just got worse. Look, it takes more energy with less reward to fake it than it does to admit your shortcomings, improve yourself, and really ‘level up’ in the pursuit of a meaningful life. Instead of faking it till you make it; FAITH it, till you make it. One is about pretending to be what you are not. The other is about believing you’ve got what it’ll take to make it happen. So don’t fake it. Faith it.
6. Cut your coat according to your size
I had the right proverb is ‘cut your coat according to your cloth’. Whichever it is, this advice has a valid place. It advocates for living within your means and not biting more than you can chew. But if you think about the big achievements in human endeavour, they were possible because some persons choose to cut their coat beyond the cloth they had in hand. The Wright Brothers didn’t cut their coat according to their cloth to invent the aeroplane, neither did most other great people in history and of our time. So, if you want to reach your wildest dream or if you see yourself doing what no one in your family has ever done before, don’t take this advice.
7. You are too big for that
Many graduates are unemployed today, not because there are no jobs, but because they believe they are too big to do some kind of jobs. The problem of people with ideas is often not the lack of capital, but the presence of pride to start small. What will people say about them? In the school of preserving your dignity, there are things you should definitely consider yourself too big for. But when it comes to your survival, you are not too big to accept what is within your reach, as long as it is ethical and does not hurt other people. There is dignity in labour. So if you are broke and struggling to find your feet financially, don’t take the advice that you are too big for some decent work.
8. Be yourself
Yes, accepting yourself for who you are is important. But this piece of advice encourages people to stay in their comfort zone and forgo new experiences, forgetting that experiences are what make you who you are. The truth is that most of us don’t know who we are. We project who we want to be seen as, and then look for every opportunity to prove that is who we are.
If you hate having people around you, hate speaking in front of a group of people, hate meeting strangers but want to live a rich and successful life, you have to accept that some things about you have to change. If being yourself is holding you back from living your best life, feel free to develop yourself and alter who you are. Instead of being yourself; become yourself.
There are many more common advice that may not be for you depending on your current circumstances and what you want from life. Which other common advice have you heard that didn’t apply to you? Please share with us in the comment section.
