Sometimes Good Advice Isn’t Good For You

Sometimes good advice isn’t good for you.

I criticize advice from super-achievers that won’t work for normal people. Advice that assumes you have infinite willpower, time, energy, confidence, skill, etc.

If advice is impossible for normal people to follow, that’s not a problem with normal people. It’s the advice that’s bad.

But what about good advice?

Advice that takes into account human limitations, and explains strategies for how to best achieve your goals given that you are a flawed human?

There can still be times when this generally good advice isn’t good for you. 

Every Individual is Different

Humans are all individuals. We’re all different. We all have our foibles, and unique quirks.

The problem with one-size-fits-all advice is that there are seven billion incredibly complex individuals who are all unique in incredibly complicated ways.

There could be strategies for improving your life that work quite well for most people.

But they may not work for you.

When Good Advice Wasn’t Good For My Sleep

Here’s a recent example from my own life.

I saw a video suggesting that the best way to sleep was on your back with a small pillow under your knees.

I used to have horrible insomnia, until I fixed it with reduced caffeine, a good sleep mask,* melatonin, and wearing orange glasses at night.

* Side note: My experience is that wraparound style sleep-masks are greatly superior in blocking out light to “eye-bra” style masks, which themselves are better than flat-style masks. If sleep masks haven’t been effective for you, you might want to try a different type.

Now my sleep is adequate, but not the best. It could certainly be improved, so I decided to try this.

And when I did, I just couldn’t fall asleep. I spent three nights where I laid in bed for hours with a pillow under my knees. 

So I decided this wasn’t working, and gave up on it.

Does this mean the advice is bad? No.

It may be this method of sleep is best for most people.

But this good advice isn’t good for me.

Sometimes Bad Advice is Good Advice

Here’s something that works for me, that I don’t recommend for most people.

Every morning, I write down my list of goals for the day.

That’s a good idea, but I make the list overly expansive and aspirational.

I write down everything I’d like to get done, knowing it’s far more than I’ll realistically be able to do.

I only complete all the items on my list about once a month.

Every other time, there are items left undone. Sometimes a lot of items.

I don’t suggest most people do this. It would be demoralizing and stressful.

You’d end up focusing on what you didn’t complete instead of being proud of what you accomplished.

But this strategy that would be bad for most people works for me. 

My background is working in Internet startups. I’m comfortable with more work to do than time to do it. It doesn’t bother me to prioritize and leave less important things undone. 

This ensures I always have something productive to do.

I don’t end up saying, “Well, I finished my tasks for the day. Time to knock off early and play video games.”

Some people’s eyes are bigger than their stomach. My ambitions are bigger than my calendar.

I know I want to do more things than I have time and energy to accomplish, and am at peace with that. 

I’m able to feel pride at what I complete instead of shame or stress about what I’d like to do, but am not able to get to.

But that’s me.

Most people are different.

Which is why I don’t think most people should emulate my strategy.

Some Better Advice

But then I read this article by Josh Spector about how to get your most important work done.

Josh Spector is someone I admire a lot. I love his For The Interested newsletter, and think he generally gives great advice.

He suggested (among other things), picking one thing that matters most, and making a list of things not to do.

This is very different than the strategy I was using.

Since Josh Spector is a lot more successful than I am, I decided to try things his way.

I stopped writing my long daily list of goals, and instead wrote down one important thing, and a list of things I wouldn’t do.

Trusting him to know more than me, I even included the article as one of the Five Boosts for the week.

And my work output plummeted.

I accomplished much less overall.

I accomplished much less of the important things.

And my lack of accomplishment made me very unhappy.

(But on the plus side, I got a lot more video game time in.)

This Good Advice Wasn’t Good For Me

Just to be clear, I’m not criticizing Josh Spector, or his advice.

I think his advice is excellent.

I would suggest you try doing things his way, and not my way.

But though his methods are good, this good advice isn’t good for me.

That’s the point.

Know Yourself

You need to understand yourself.

Learn about yourself.

And when making changes to your life, observe the results.

Sometimes things that work for most people don’t work for you.

And that’s okay.

You should still be open minded.

You’re not perfect. You’re not already doing everything right.

There are people in the world who are wiser than you. You should be open to listening to them.

When they give reasonable advice, you should take it. 

(When they give unreasonable advice, you shouldn’t take it. You’re smart enough to know the difference.)

You should fully commit to this reasonable advice, with hope and expectations of it improving your life.

If you assume something won’t work, it won’t. You’ll subconsciously or consciously make sure of that.

But if you give a piece of advice an honest chance, and it clearly isn’t working for you, you should abandon it.

No matter how good the advice seems.

No matter how much you respect the person giving it.

No matter how many other people it works for.

If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you.

One-size-fits-all advice doesn’t truly fit all.

There’s no shame or guilt in this.

It’s not your fault that the advice didn’t work.

And if it’s generally good advice, there’s no fault or guilt for the advice-giver either.

It’s just the simple fact that in a world of seven billion unique individuals, some things that work for most people won’t work for you.

And that’s okay, because we’re all different.

What about you? What generally good advice isn’t good for you?