Almost invariably, what you don’t want when you’re wrestling with a problem is ‘a solution’. Particularly when you’ve been living with it for ages and it’s been going round and round in your head.

I never fail to be surprised when I’m offered the first piece of advice that enters the head of the person I’m talking to. If it’s that obvious, surely he or she must know that it’s already occurred to me? And, if I’m sharing the problem, has been thought about and rejected?

What I – and plenty of other people – need, more than anything else, is to be listened to and heard.

Giving advice or offering a solution is often just a way of shutting someone up. If you really want to help, just listen, hear what is being said, be interested. Don’t give advice before you’ve heard the whole story, if at all. Sometimes all someone wants to do is to think out loud. OK, sometimes they really haven’t thought about the most obvious solution.

More often, though, they have.

Filed under: Career Coaching, Coaching, Life Coaching by Melanie