27. Why the Advice You’re Getting Isn’t Helping - and What Actually Works

Book your free clarity call here if you're ready to shift from confusion to clarity. On this call, you’ll get personalized insights tailored specifically to your journey and a practical next step you can feel confident about. 

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In a world full of relationship and life advice, how do you know which voices to trust? On this episode, we dive into why generic or misaligned advice often falls short and how taking guidance from someone who truly understands your unique journey can make all the difference.

We’ll explore how well‑meaning people often project their own experiences and why you need a coach who can offer personalized, empathetic, and truly effective support. 

This episode is for anyone working on emotional regulation, conflict resolution, rebuilding self‑worth, unlearning toxic patterns, and cultivating self‑love while dating. We’ll talk about how ethical life coaching can support healthy relationships, truth‑telling conversations, and boundaries in communication.

If you’re on a self‑improvement journey, healing while dating, or learning how to find love in your 30s and beyond, this relationship and love podcast will help you stop taking advice that keeps you stuck - and start choosing guidance that helps you thrive together.

Tune in to learn how to identify unhelpful advice, embrace self‑trust, and choose the right guidance to thrive in both love and life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Heal Thrive Prosper. I'm Andrea Tanase. And if survival mode made you forget who you are, I'm here to help you remember. After hitting rock bottom and rebuilding my life from the inside out, I now guide people like you, the cycle breakers, the strong ones, the overachievers, to unlearn harmful patterns, reclaim your worth, and build a love and life that feel like freedom, not survival. So grab your favorite snack and let's heal, thrive, and prosper together. Welcome back, everyone. A conversation I had this past week really sparked something in me. Today I want to start with a question that might hit a little close to home. Have you ever gotten a piece of advice, specifically relationship advice, that actually made everything worse? Not because the person didn't care, but just because the advice didn't fit you. It wasn't relevant. I want you to think about that moment, the worst advice you've ever gotten, and ask yourself this question: what made it bad? Really? What made you just say this advice is not for me? And hold that thought because we are going to unpack it together. And I'll be telling you some bad advice that I've gotten and how it's so important to get guidance from the right places. First, we're going to talk about why advice misses the mark. Here's the thing about advice most of it is actually someone else's story, and they are just projecting. People don't give advice from your perspective and your experience. They give it from theirs, their wounds, their fears, everything they haven't unpacked, their patterns, their own history, and sometimes their own agenda, conscious or not. And that's why advice often feels just off. So let me coach you through this for a second. When someone gives you advice, ask yourself, is this about me or is this about them? And think, do they actually understand the dynamics that I'm navigating? Do they know my values, my intentions? Most of the time, the answer is no. And that's why advice, even well-meaning, can feel irrelevant, confusing, or destabilizing. It could just make everything worse, like I said. And so let me tell you a story that captures this perfectly. Recently, someone reached out to me, a friend of a friend, asking for relationship advice. He wanted to know how to bring up a very specific conversation without making it weird or tense or just not having the outcome that he pictured in his head. Classic situation, honestly. Now, here's what a regular person would do. They would not ask clarifying questions, they would not get any context, they would not ask the intentions, they would just give advice based on experiences they've had, maybe an exact experience with the problem that this person presented to me. And they I could have even just given him given him a script and said, say this, but I didn't do that. That would have been my approach from my experience, not his. So instead, I coached him through it. I asked, What's your intention here? Why are you bringing this up? What's the real problem? Because when he first brought up the issue to me, he was going to bring it up in a way that his partner was going to be completely turned off. And so I knew that, but I wanted him to get to that conclusion on his own. So I asked him, What's the outcome? Why are you bringing this up? What's the intention? And what's the solution that you want to come to together? What is underneath all of this? Where is it coming from? And I asked a lot of clarifying questions specific to the situation so that I can get a full picture as much as I can of the dynamics and how this would best be brought up for these two specific people. So here's a moment for you. When you slow down enough to name your actual intentions, then the right words, quote unquote, will become more obvious. So this is something that you can do and utilize when you're dealing with a problem, a situation, and you want to know what is the right way to approach this. In this case, the person I was talking to already knew what message he wanted to bring across to his partner. He knew what he hoped would happen. He just needed help clearing the noise and focusing on the most important thing is the actual connection between him and his partner. And I told him this if this is the right person for you, approaching it in a grounded, intentional way is the way that everything is going to click. We talked through how the situation should be approached and what he could say based on his intentions. But guess what? I didn't tell him what to say, I just made him understand that approaching it from one way and approaching it in a hostile manner or bringing up a certain topic without first bringing up his intentions and what he actually wanted clarity on, it was not going to go well. And so from that, we were able to talk through a different approach. And it was him, it was his words. A few days later, he got back to me and told me, hey, I talked to my girlfriend, and it went way better than I originally expected. She totally understood where I was coming from, and everything's good between us. Thank you for taking the time to coach me through it. And that's the thing. I did not give him advice, I opened up a chance for him to actually gain clarity on the situation. A lot of times, clarity is way more powerful than advice. You don't need someone to tell you what to do. You need someone to help you hear yourself better. That's exactly what I did for him. When you're tangled in fear, overthinking, old patterns, or your nervous system is just activated, your own wisdom gets buried. And clarity is what brings you back to your truth, your values, your actual intentions, and your grounded self. And once you're anchored in that, you can see clearly, and the next step becomes so obvious. In this conversation I had, something else became really obvious. And that's all the bad advice that I've gotten. And so I promised you at the beginning of the episode that I would share some moments of where I've gotten advice that made absolutely no sense. And a lot of it was because I was just asking the wrong people. I remember when I was trying to make a decision whether I should go to graduate school. And then again, after I got my master's, if I should continue. And I was asking people who never had to go through, make any of those decisions, who never had to go through any of that. Um, and for other reasons too, they just didn't have an understanding of the situation and what it meant to go back, what it meant to not go back. And I was just barking up the wrong tree. Another example would be in a couple of past relationships. I had asked for advice from people that didn't know the full situation and also were not equipped to ask me those clarifying questions and get all the information because just they're just human, right? They're human, they didn't have the information. And so they gave me advice that did not hit the mark because of that. Again, partly my fault. I didn't know at the time that not everyone is just a walking bucket of great advice and guidance. In fact, most people are not. And again, it's not because they have bad intentions, it just might mean that you're asking the wrong person. They are not equipped to give you that advice. When someone told me just communicate more, when I was in an abusive relationship, that was not great advice. When someone told me just give it time, that was not great advice. When I asked about graduate school and if I should take out all these loans for a degree I didn't really actually need and I didn't realize at that time, they were like, Yeah, do whatever you feel you think is right. And I didn't know what I felt or thought was right, and that's why I was asking for advice. Again, in the wrong places. Those are just a couple of examples. And there are so many more times in my life, especially in my young adulthood, where I really outsourced a lot of the decisions that I made. And now, even with a business coach and all of these people I have in my corner, they are all people I intentionally chose, knowing that they have the right intentions. They are going to know me as a full human being. They're going to know my struggles, my past, my goals, my approach, my values. And they are going to be able to guide me in the right direction. And I'm not asking people who are not equipped to advise me for advice. We're not doing that anymore. And I highly suggest you don't as well. And I know I asked you to reflect on some bad advice you've gotten and why it was bad. And I hope by the end of this that you really come to understand that your problems, your life, your struggles, even your wins and the things that are going so well for you, you should be protecting that. It is sacred and not everyone should have access to it. After all this, I've realized none of the advice I've ever gotten, 90% of it, it was not based on my values, my needs, my relational patterns. It was based on other people's fears, their attachment style, their past heartbreaks, their own worldview, their comfort level with conflict, and many, many other things. And here's the moment that I want you to understand. Bad advice disconnects you from yourself. And good coaching is what can bring you back to yourself. So that example of the conversation I had this week with someone and how I was able to coach them through it and get the information I needed, get the intent, get some background, that's the difference. Advice will tell you what to do. And coaching actually helps you understand why you're stuck, what you actually want, your intentions, and so that you can move forward in alignment and with clarity and with calm, with ease. You don't need someone to tell you what to do, but a person who is giving you the correct guidance will help you connect to yourself and hear yourself again. That clarity and that ability to access your own wisdom will bring you back to yourself. And that's what I want for everyone. And that's why I'm here doing what I do. So as you reflect on the advice that you've gotten, I want to offer you a 25-minute clarity call. It's free. It's a mini coaching session where we get right to the core of whatever's been tugging at you, whether you're single, you're dating, you're in a relationship, you have some conflict with family that you want to get worked out. We'll figure out what's actually going on, what's keeping you stuck, what you need clarity on, and what your next aligned step is. And you would be amazed what happens in 25 minutes. It's the same kind of clarity that helped the person from the story walk into a very hard conversation that he was unsure about and approach it with confidence and walk out with a greater connection to that person. If you want that kind of clarity, the kind that helps you hear yourself again. The link will be in the show notes. No pressure, no commitment, just getting your next aligned step. Also, as we wrap up, happy almost spring. Even here in Southern California, where winter is basically a rumor, um, not reality. I'm feeling that defrosting energy. I hope you are too. In fact, after I am done recording this, which will be just in a minute, I will go outside, get some sunshine, walk the dog, just feel the sun on my skin. And I hope that wherever you are, even if the sun is not shining, you can find some sunshine in your life today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.