Unsolicited advice has been with us since forever, but has become even more bothering with the rise of the Internet and social networks. Welcome to the internet, where everyone has an opinion about everything. Particularly about how you should live your life, raise your children, build your business, make life-altering choices. You name the topic, they have the solution because they know better than you, don’t they?

When I became a mother I unintentionally stepped into the world of unsolicited advice, where everyone knows how to raise your child better than you do. Truth is I’ve been living in this world before being a mom, but it didn’t affect me as much. In fact, it didn’t affect me at all in recent years. That’s because I’ve become indifferent to what other people say (or think, for that matter) and I’ve built the self-confidence I need to make informed decisions and live with their consequences, good or bad, afterwards.

It wasn’t as easy to be emotionally detached when it came to motherhood. I was initially overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a tiny human being, whose life literally depended on me. As a result, the incredible amount of unsolicited advice that I received, while most of it well-intentioned, destabilised me in the moment. It was stressful, felt a lot like judgement and it added an unnecessary amount of pressure on my shoulders. It took me a couple of months to gain the self-confidence required to not only set the right boundaries and dismiss the unwanted advice, but also feel good about myself and my abilities as a mother afterwards.

Unsolicited advice knows no boundaries

Personal or professional choices, all of them are subject to unsolicited advice. I was genuinely surprised to see how far it goes. Let’s take as an example the announcement of my decision to part ways with Revolut and take a sabbatical. I’ve written about this here. Lots of people reached out to share their experiences and how my decision resonated with them. However, there’s also a dark side of the story. As unbelievable as it may sound, I’ve been approached, publicly or in private, by people who just wanted to give me their recommendations with respect to my career. People that I never met. To name just a few:

• I’ve been criticised for the decision to leave Revolut and complete strangers were asking for additional explanations. Needless to say, I owe no explanations for my decisions to anyone. Nobody should defend and explain their decisions. Particularly to strangers;
• People that I don’t know advised me not to stay too long, because I will loose momentum and I’ll ruin my career. Of course I didn’t ask any advice about how long I should stay, it’s a highly personal decision;
• Others told me that 3 months are more than enough, because it worked for them. No awareness whatsoever to the fact that we’re different, that our circumstances are different. Little understanding that there’s no universal solution to what might seem like a similar problem;
• Some other people advised to go on a self-discovery path, start meditation, return to nature. While I’m confident their intentions were good, I was nonetheless startled. I still don’t remember the part where I actually asked anyone for recommendations. And examples could go on, but I’ll just stop here.

Unsolicited advice knows no boundaries. It takes various forms, all of them equally toxic. It can come in the form of people offering their opinion on how you should tackle a particular challenge you’re facing. Narcissistic or arrogant “advisors” will just tell you how they behaved in what they perceive to be a similar situation, with no awareness whatsoever that your circumstances are different and they don’t have the full picture.

Or worse, some people will just ask questions with implied answers. That’s nothing more than open judgement of your life choices in disguise. When are you getting married aka you should have done this by now. Don’t you plan to have children? What are you waiting for? aka you’re doing this wrong. When do you plan to have the second kid? aka what are you waiting for? (I get this one a lot myself). For the Romanian speaking readers, I highly recommend you these articles written by two professionals I respect and admire:

• “When do you plan to have a child? Time flies by” by Diana Cosmin
• Mara Coman on rebuilding your life after a divorce

Personal or professional, your choices are going to be second-guessed by people who simply can’t mind their own businesses. Most of us have received an unbelievable amount of unsolicited advice throughout our lifetimes. It can damage relationships, creates unnecessary anxiety and emotional distress. So how come it still exists in this rudimentary form?

The Good

Unsolicited advice sometimes comes from a good place, as counterintuitive as it may sound. Some people genuinely care about you and they want to help. The problem is that they don’t know how. As a result, they try to take your problems in their own hands and offer you the solution. Being aware of where the unsolicited advice comes from and understanding the real intentions of the giver will help you adjust your reaction to it.

For example, families are usually a never-ending source of unsolicited advice, albeit with the best of intentions. Unfortunately the consequences stay the same for the receiver. It is a mild form of paternalism, where the “advisor” believes that what they say is in your best interest. Sometimes it also hides a desire to be needed or heard, particularly true for parents once their kids leave home. Paternalism fails gloriously every single time. Even my 2 years old kid shows a temper tantrum if I don’t give him the freedom to choose and discover the consequences of his own actions himself.

The Bad

Most unsolicited advice, however, doesn’t come from a good place. Quite on the contrary. Some people are just arrogant or narcissistic and they believe they simply know better than you do because <insert desired reason here>. Truth is they will justify their sense of entitlement by quoting their life experience, their age, their education. Or anything else that might feed their self-importance.

Unsolicited advice can also be criticism in disguise, envy, lack of empathy, or just people trying to make a point. It’s a very good representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect – people are just ignorant of their own ignorance.

The Ugly

There’s also an ugly part of the story, going beyond the motives of the “advisor”. Unsolicited advice is presumptive and wrong assumptions always lead to wrong conclusions. It is also disrespectful and bitter, oftentimes feeling like criticism or judgement of one’s life choices. As a result, it creates anxieties and it’s stressful, making the receiver worse off after receiving it.

So, how to respond to unsolicited advice?

I don’t think there’s a correct answer to this question, or at least I don’t have it. The way I respond depends on who is at the other end of the conversation, what are their intentions and what’s my relationship with them.

Set clear boundaries

If I feel that the unsolicited advice comes from a good place and I have a close relationship with the person that’s (un)voluntarily advising me, I try not to hurt their feelings. In this case, I either communicate openly with them, or respond in a funny (ok, I admit, most often sarcastic) note.

• The open communication style. “I understand that you want what’s best for me and you are trying to help, but I don’t need a solution. I just need you to listen and trust me that I’ll find the best solution for myself”; or “I know that this approach worked for you, but we are different and different problems call for different solutions”;
• The funny sarcastic approach. I use this one frequently with close friends and family. For example, whenever my otherwise well-intentioned sister, who’s an exceptional aunt but has no kids, has some ideas on how to raise my son, I immediately reply. “So, from your vast child-raising experience, what would you do? Oh, please, don’t stop, just tell me more!”. We normally both burst into laughing then and the conversation stops there.

However, I have to admit that there are times when the unsolicited advice comes at a really bad time, when I am stressed out, really tired or have something else on my mind. While I am not proud of this, I have to admit that my response in those circumstances is closer to kiddo’s temper tantrums than to the composed approach I presented above.

To give just an example, I vividly remember the first day back home with my newborn kid. I was exhausted, recovering after giving birth, and terrified that I could somehow break the tiny human being. My mother and godmother came to visit. They started explaining me how to dress the kid, how to breastfeed, how to bath the kid. All the how tos that I didn’t actually want to hear. They seemed to be very hands-on and have a solution for everything. I simply did not have the energy and patience to listen to them. As a result, I just showed them out. Funny thing is that they blamed it on the hormones, not on the unsolicited advice.

Call out their BS

While most literature on the topic advises on responding with empathy and assertiveness to any type of unsolicited advice, I tend to disagree here. Why should I be the one managing the feelings of a person that’s not minding their own business? Quite on the contrary, in these circumstances I am very quick in dismissing the unsolicited advice. I most often use sarcasm and I am very direct in telling people I’m not interested in their opinions. I discovered that a passive-aggressive response also helps stop the “advisor”, although I’d love not to be in the position to use this too often.

Trust yourself

Truth is unsolicited advice has the power to destabilise even the most self-confident among us. I think it’s very important to stay firm to your beliefs, no matter who tells you otherwise. Never second guess yourself. It’s your life, your decisions. You should do what you think it’s best for you, no matter what other people say. And remember that you don’t need to explain yourself and justify your decisions.

That’s easier said than done though, and it takes practice to get to the emotional detachment required to handle unsolicited advice. What worked for me here is to consistently repeat to both the “advisor” and myself: my life, my rules, my decisions. You can replace “life” with everything you’re getting advice on, being it kids, career, relationship, or any type of situation you’re going through. Therapy also helped me take full-ownership of my decisions (more on this here).

How to refrain from giving unsolicited advice

Up until now I’ve tried to showcase the negative impact unsolicited advice has on the giver, the receiver, and their relationship. The reality though is that the world is not divided between heroes and villains. Things are not simply black and white. Truth be told, most of us have been in the position of the “advisor”, (un)intentionally stepping over boundaries and intruding where we shouldn’t have.

Stopping well-intentioned unsolicited advice

Empathy is a two-sided sword when it comes to unsolicited advice. An empathetic person will have the capacity to understand what other people feel and place themselves in their shoes. The problem is that no matter how empathetic you (think you) are, you can never really be in somebody else’s shoes. Repeat after me: you can never have a complete understanding of what that particular person is going through.

I am guilty as charged here. Back in the days, whenever a friend of mine was going through a major life challenge, I tried to place myself in their position. I wanted to help them find a solution. It took me a while to understand that nobody has the capacity to do so without using the self-reference criterion.

When you’re trying to place yourself in someone else’s shoes and advise based on how you think you would react (or how you actually reacted) in (what you perceive to be) a similar situation, you are going to unconsciously reference your own previous experiences, feelings, values, know-how. And, no matter how close you are to a person, their own set of references is different and hence the best solution for them is not the one you come up with.

What helped me refrain from giving unsolicited advice is acknowledging first and foremost that my friends don’t need me to fix their problems – they just need someone to listen to them, a shoulder to cry on and someone to offer unconditional support as they work things out themselves. A game-changer for me was Kate Murphy’s “You’re not listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters”, a book that opened up my eyes and helped me become a better listener, ask the right questions and support my friends, instead of annoy them. For Romanian speaking readers, you can order the translated book here along with the DOR #43, a narrative journalism magazine that literally changed my perspective on life.

What about the bad one?

Things are not as easy when you look in the mirror and discover you’re the villain, offering unsolicited advice that comes from a bad place. The advice that we give such easily on social networks, hidden behind our screens, almost always falls into that category. And, if we are honest with ourselves, we’ve all been there sometimes. So, what can we do to avoid getting back there and refrain from giving unsolicited advice?

• Be kind! If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. To evaluate this, I always ask myself “Will what I’m going to say make the person feel better or worse?”. If the answer is worse, I just keep my mouth shut (or keep scrolling down);
• Keep your opinions for yourself! Along the same line, before I make what I might mistakenly perceive as an “invaluable contribution”, I ask myself “Will what am I going to say / write bring any value for the person I’m talking to?”. If there’s any doubt, I just shut the f**k up;
• Don’t be an a**hole! While most people seem to keep their manners in face to face conversation, the online world has turned into a jungle. Truth is the internet is full of jerks! Just don’t be one of them – we’ve all been there, and we’ve all behaved like a**holes sometimes, but I think it’s important to acknowledge this and do our best to minimise these instances. When in doubt, I always ask myself the questions below:
  1. Do I know this person? If the answer is NO, I just shut up. How can I have an opinion on someone else’s problems if I don’t even know that person?
  2. Did they address a direct question to me? Even if I know that person well, I refrain from expressing my views on their problems if they did not address a direct question to me.

Live and let live!

I hear way too often people claiming they are entitled to offer unsolicited advice. Oftentimes, they’re hiding this under the false pretences of freedom of speech. Yes, freedom of expression is a basic human right, as defined in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act. But one thing to bear in mind is that your freedom ends where others’ freedom begins. Of course you are entitled to have your own opinions, but, for God’s sake, just keep them for yourself!

We’d all live in a much better world if we’d mind our business and offer unconditional support to the ones we love, instead of unsolicited advice to people we barely know. Just live and let live!