Why Do People Ignore Good Advice? The Surprising Psychology Behind Why We Reject Help

Tired of Your Advice Being Ignored? How to Give Guidance That People Will Actually Follow

Ever feel like a modern-day Cassandra whose warnings go unheard? Discover the real reasons people reject good counsel—from the “willpower gap” to the need for validation—based on Dynomight’s insightful analysis of why advice so often fails. Stop wasting your breath on guidance that goes nowhere—continue reading to learn the specific adjustments you need to make so your advice finally sticks.

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According to Greek mythology, Apollo, the god of truth and prophecy, granted Cassandra the gift of foresight in an effort to woo her. But when she rebuffed his advances, Apollo placed a wicked curse on Cassandra so that no one would believe her prophecies. Despite Cassandra’s warnings of impending disaster, her advice went unheeded. If you ever feel like a modern-day Cassandra — that is, you dole out words of wisdom that are subsequently disregarded — then blogger Dynomight has some words of advice for you, which you, too, will likely ignore.

Take-Aways

• People frequently ignore reasonable, well-intentioned advice.
• Sometimes your advice is inadvertently bad.
• Oftentimes, lived experience is the best teacher.
• People will ignore your advice if they don’t understand it.
• Advice that benefited you might not work for others.
• If heeding your advice requires willpower, it will be harder to adhere to.
• People seek reassurance, not advice.

Summary

People frequently ignore reasonable, well-intentioned advice.

Has a friend ever asked you for advice? Maybe you took the time to put together a thoughtful, sage response and delivered it with kindness and good intentions, but in the end, your friend ignored your guidance and suffered the fallout. If only your friend had listened to you! So why did your companion ignore your counsel?

Sometimes your advice is inadvertently bad.

Occasionally, unbeknownst to you, your well-meaning advice is terrible. If your friends followed it, they might be worse off. Consider that all of President Kennedy’s Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended air strikes on Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba in 1962. Or perhaps your friends fail to divulge the full extent of the situation. If you were privy to all the nitty-gritty details, you might proffer different suggestions.

“Maybe the same issues that make them need your advice also make them unable to use it.”

Nevertheless, sage counsel often gets overlooked. Have you ever dished out great advice, only for your friends to ignore it, suffer the consequences, and later regurgitate your own advice back to you as though they originated it?

Oftentimes, lived experience is the best teacher.

Novice climbers won’t learn to scale a wall by reading a textbook or hearing instructions. Though you might encourage rookies by explaining that the best way to advance up the wall is to push with their legs rather than pulling with their arms, they won’t truly understand until they discover it for themselves. Trial and error is often the best teacher.

People will ignore your advice if they don’t understand it.

Have you ever had an epiphany, only to realize that your breakthrough was something that others have been advising you about for years? Perhaps you simply couldn’t understand warnings about the amount of coffee you were drinking until you finally reduced your intake and started sleeping better.

“If you really want to have impact, focus on giving advice that is easy to follow.”

The brain tends to shun advice it doesn’t want to follow. For example, maybe everyone else can see that your relationship with your significant other is going nowhere, but you delude yourself that everything’s fine because you want to protect yourself from the pain of a breakup.

Advice that benefited you might not work for others.

A common piece of advice for healing from a broken heart, for instance, is to seek escapism or distraction by binge-watching a TV show. This well-intentioned nugget might work for some people, but not for all.

“The trouble is that we’re all trapped inside of ourselves.”

Every person is unique, and each individual can truly know only themselves. Advice that you yourself might appreciate could sound hollow to someone else, and knowing what advice will resonate is difficult without being that other person. If the recipients of your advice don’t believe it could work, they are unlikely to try it.

If heeding your advice requires willpower, it will be harder to adhere to.

A friend is more likely to take you up on your advice if you recommend, say, buying an air purifier or noise-canceling headphones than if you suggest, say, taking up running as a hobby. That’s because turning running into a habit is hard. It requires willpower, energy, time, and dedication.

People seek reassurance, not advice.

Oftentimes, when you ask for advice, you’re really seeking validation that you have made the right decision. If you ask enough people, you will eventually find someone who acts as your echo chamber. Moreover, people often fail to follow good advice if they are too deeply entrenched in the crisis to view the situation objectively. Mired in a problem, they struggle to recognize good advice.

“Advice is cheap. So maybe we keep asking for advice in more and more situations where it’s increasingly unlikely to be helpful, until expected benefit matches the (tiny) cost.”

If you find that different people repeatedly offer you the same advice, but you don’t understand why, reflect on whether you are missing something. Moreover, if you’re stuck in a rut and your situation isn’t improving, try taking a leap of faith and “blindly” following other people’s advice. Maybe they can see something from their perspective that you can’t. On the other hand, if you regularly dole out advice, lower your expectations that your recipients will heed your wisdom. But if you really want to help someone improve their situation, deliver your message in a way they can easily understand and digest.

About the Author

Dynomight is an anonymous blogger who writes about life, science, society, and technology.