The right piece of advice delivered at the right time can prove invaluable. It can be the difference between allowing your problems to overwhelm you and finding the key to dealing with them productively.
Sometimes the advice takes a little while to gestate. Perhaps you mull it over for days before deciding how to interpret it. Alternatively you might dismiss it out of hand as patronising nonsense only to have it pop back into your head years later when it finally resonates.
According to Art Markman, PhD, we resist advice for two main reasons. The first is that it often entails admitting we were wrong about something, the second is that we know how much thought we've put into a decision whereas we're less trusting that the advice-giver has done the same.
But the ability to evaluate yourself, to make changes to how you think and to see where you're making mistakes is invaluable. Over the years we've been on the receiving end of a lot of advice given with that in mind. Some of it has stuck, some of it was dismissed with an eyeroll (although it could still rear its head in the future...) but all of it was offered with the intention of helping out.
In the interests of passing on the bits which helped us we've put together an advice selection box below with contributions from colleagues and friends. But if there are any words of wisdom which have helped you out or which you return to during stressful moments just pop them in the comments section below.