Filtering Feedback: When To Take Unprofessional Advice
“Don’t care what people think, care what the right people think.”
- Jeffery Lund
What’s the difference between helpful feedback and noise? Our generation tends to swing wildly between two extremes: the total dismissal of others’ opinions — be 100% yourself and bulldoze anyone who disagrees — and the over-absorption of these opinions, where every comment is internalized, damaging mental health and eroding sense of self.
The real work is learning how to tell the difference, and not all criticism deserves equal weight. Meaningful input usually comes from people who know you well and care about your growth. These are the people willing to say the uncomfortable thing, pointing out patterns and blind spots. If someone in your personal life tells you you haven’t been a great friend, partner, or version of yourself — that’s feedback worth pausing over.
On the other hand, careless criticism, random cruelty, or uninformed opinions that tie value to followers, aesthetics, material items, and output? That’s just static. Learn to lean in when the advice comes from a place of care, and ignore the rest with confidence.
The difference comes down to the source, the intent, and the truth behind it. The “right people” are the ones who see you clearly — your strengths, your contradictions, your habits — and who are genuinely invested in your growth. In a culture that often frames “putting yourself first” as cutting people off at the first sign of discomfort, it matters to name how real relationships work: they require effort, inconvenience, and mutual responsibility.
These people aren’t just there to applaud your successes; they stay when it would be easier to walk away. They hold up the mirror when you’re hiding from yourself because they want you in their life, not because they want control or superiority. Having uncomfortable conversations requires more effort than simply ending the relationship, so choosing to have these talks is an active expression of care — a form of love that prioritizes growth over avoidance.
Being told you’re falling short can sting, but applying it can lead to real personal development. The constructive conversations that point out harmful behaviors without attacking your character hold guidance worth listening to.
As 2025 comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on how much energy I could’ve saved if I’d understood this distinction sooner. So, in the spirit of growth, here are a few key lessons that this year taught me — the moments I overlooked wisdom from the right people, and the times I let the wrong voices shape me.
The “right people” — Advice I should’ve taken sooner
Self-awareness ≠ self-work
I used to pride myself on being self-aware. I could list my patterns, analyze my behavior, and explain why I am the way I am, like a walking personality test. But self-awareness alone isn’t growth — insight is stagnancy if it doesn’t lead to change. I learned this the hard way when a partner reminded me that knowing your patterns isn’t the same as changing them, and “self-awareness” can become a hiding place if it never turns into behavior shifts. Rather than therapy-speaking your way through an explanation for your negative behavior, channel it into actual growth so your apologies have weight, truth, and action behind them.
Patience isn’t always maturity; sometimes it’s fear of conflict wearing the language of grace
Taking the high road, delaying confrontation, or silently enduring conflict for the sake of peace can feel more adult. But sometimes, it’s just fear and discomfort dressed up as maturity. Taking this approach — waiting for an apology, avoiding a fight — can actually stunt relationship growth and build resentment. Patience can become a shield for avoiding tough conversations, letting patterns fester, or maintaining an illusion of moral superiority. True maturity isn’t about holding back, it’s about knowing when to act and when to speak, even when it’s uncomfortable.
You don’t need an apology to forgive
Waiting for an apology can become a convenient excuse to stay stuck in anger. Hanging onto resentment because the other person is in the wrong creates blinders and keeps their potential growth out of sight. You freeze the person into that one single version of themselves, making holding a grudge less about justice and more about control. Forgiveness doesn’t absolve someone else; it releases your own grip on bitterness. It opens your eyes to the complexity of human growth rather than holding people hostage to a single version of who they were in that moment. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it is completely unfair, especially when it seems as though they haven’t changed. My mom had to remind me of this recently, and I bristled: I’m the victim here! Why is it my job to do the work of forgiveness? I still struggle with this, but just remind myself that forgiveness is agency, not a favor.
The “wrong people” — Advice I wish I ignored:
Real accountability means suffering for your mistakes
Guilt is useful; self-crucifixion is not. I grew up believing that accountability demanded pain, punishment, and suffering — a tangle of religious and cultural conditioning that convinced me that true growth came from tormenting myself. But accountability without self-compassion isn’t accountability: it’s performance. It recenters you instead of repairing the harm done to someone else. Feeling guilt is natural when you’ve hurt someone; however, clinging to self-reproach turns responsibility into punishment, stalling actual growth. Accountability should be about reflection, repair, empathy, and moving forward — not martyrdom.
Rest must be earned
This advice has seeped into everything: work, friendships, hobbies. The message is subtle but corrosive — your value is proportional to your output, and even rest has been absorbed into our economy of productivity. When we measure worth by productivity, even our innate humanity becomes numbered and tracked. Am I creative enough? Am I giving enough joy to the people in my life? How many lives have I touched this year? This mindset turns relationships and hobbies into performance metrics instead of spaces for connection, joy, and growth. Your value is not your to-do list or your efficiency. Life is measured in messy, ordinary, human moments — reflecting on my life this past year has shown me I need to stop counting them as a public display of my humanness: I have to let them speak for themselves.
If they wanted to, they would
I threw this saying around many times in my personal relationships — romantic, platonic, familial. And in some cases, yes, it may apply. However, reducing complex human behavior to a TikTok slogan is dangerous. It ignores the factors that fear, capacity, timing, and emotional bandwidth play in any relationship — everything that makes humans complicated. This juvenile phrase encourages resentment, oversimplifies nuance, and discourages honest communication: A lazy excuse masquerading as wisdom. Does this mean we need to tolerate poor treatment? No. Does this make carelessness acceptable in our relationships? No. But relationships cannot be distilled into viral one-liners, although it is catchy and can feel justified.
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Some advice stings, some advice poisons. Listen to the right people. Apply the advice that challenges your character in a constructive way, and discard the negative cultural scripts and hate-driven comments that confuse harm with truth and call it wisdom.
