How many times do you actually take your own advice? Think about it, when was the last time you gave a friend amazing advice regarding a problem she was facing, but when faced with the same problem, you didn’t know how to handle it?

It happens all the time, and as humans we tend to give advice that we rarely apply to ourselves.

The reasons behind why we don’t take our own advice are simpler than we would imagine, and much of it has to do with our emotions.

When a friend is venting about the mean boss at work or how she was passed up for a promotion, it’s easy to look at the problem as an outsider and rationalize reasons why it played out the way it did.

You are able to offer advice on how she should handle the issue moving forward and what to do in the meantime to feel better about the situation.

You can do all this because you are no where near as emotionally invested as your friend is because at the end of the day it’s not happening to you, according to Elite Daily.

You are able to rationally look at the situation and offer advice because it’s not pertaining directly to you and your life. You are not experiencing it and you are not feeling the personal pain from being rejected for the job.

That is until you do. One day you find yourself not earning a promotion and all of a sudden all that amazing advice you gave your friend goes out the window.

You can’t look at the situation in the same rational manner because you’re emotional about it.

Another reason why we don’t take our own advice is because sometimes our advice sucks. Sorry to say it, but there are moments when we simply say something to make someone feel better and even we know it’s crummy advice, according to The Guardian.

“Don’t worry, this too shall pass,” or “It’ll all be okay, eventually,” are just some of the phrases that make us even we want to slap ourselves when we say them.

But alas, we are attempting to calm down a heightened situation by simply offering kind words, but at the end of the day you know even you wouldn’t listen to them.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing reasons why we don’t take our own advice is because it requires us to take a deep look in the mirror and face the music about the situation, according to Elite Daily.

It’s always hard when we have to self-reflect and look at what we did wrong. Having to be our own critic and admit that we played a part in creating the issue that we now need advice to solve can be intimidating.

We have a hard time taking our own advice because we have to pick ourselves and the situation apart, which is much harder to do than picking apart someone else.

So the next time you’re faced with a tough burden and need some help solving it, try facing it head on and saying to yourself what you would say to someone else.

Perhaps an amazing revelation will come out of it, or maybe you’ll just call up a friend and see what they have to say.