Career and professional advice seem to be offered left right and center these days. Whether it's from your LinkedIn feed, from colleagues, from university or college resources, or it�s the unsolicited advice your relatives offer you at Thanksgiving dinner, it seems like there is never a shortage! Some of these pieces of guidance are truly great and helpful, and it is extremely generous for someone to take a part of their day to help you in your professional journey. But let�s be honest, not every piece of advice is useful or applicable to our situations. With the plethora of tips and tricks being thrown at us at once, some are contradictory and some also have ulterior motives to get something out of you (a pretty penny perhaps).

So how does one differentiate between the good advice that will help one grow and prosper, and the advice that serves as noise, that just confuses you and makes you doubt yourself? Well, there is certainly no clear-cut formula to determine the above, but there are a few guidelines to keep in mind when figuring this out.

Listen to your gut: You Know Yourself Best

The most important person to listen to when receiving any sort of advice is yourself. Your ambitions and goals are best understood by yourself, and you have the clearest understanding of your current situation and set of skills. Some suggestions from others will resonate much more for you, and that can be because you can visualize the benefits of what they are saying better, they come from a similar professional background as you, or what they are saying applies perfectly to where you are in your journey. Some suggestions will just not click for you and you won�t see its use, and that�s a good sign to shelf that advice for another time perhaps. Listening to your gut feeling and accepting help where it feels right, or from sources you feel confident about, are your best bet at feeling good about your next professional decisions and moves. Worried you might not have the best judgment for this kind of stuff? Well, I�d like to believe our gut is right most of the time, and when it's not, it's the perfect opportunity to learn from our missed opportunities.

Understand the Moral of the Story

People share their successes through anecdotes and stories often. They go through an important moment in their career, providing a sequence of events and details about their conversations with others, all to explain how they got to where they are today. You may take this storytelling as instructions on what you should do to get similar results, however, that might not be the best way to reap the benefits of this advice. Often, understanding the underlying moral and message of their anecdotes is the real advice that is being given. For instance, an experienced professional in your field may be telling you how they used their strong skills in presentations to impress the right people and land a new opportunity. One might conclude that the advice they offer is to improve your presentation skills, but the better conclusion might be to emphasize and demonstrate your strengths to impress the right people. What�s crazy is that different people might see a different message behind the same story, but that�s okay, as long as each person is pulling what is most applicable to them.

Understand the Context and Rules of your Field

While we like to share our journeys with the numerous people in our network, it is important to keep in mind that most people are following different career paths in different fields, and while your goals may align with others, each industry and position has its contexts that can change everything. To best apply professional advice, you must first understand what are the expectations and the precedent for professionals in your desired field or position, and see how and if that advice can be applied. Some industries will have a much greater emphasis on networking, knowing the right people, selling yourself, and being charismatic. Other industries will measure your success by your skill set, the numbers your past projects reap, and your ability to pick up new skills quickly. Thus, before blindly applying some more drastic career growth strategies that were suggested by a person in a different industry, check to see how these practices are appreciated by leaders in your desired field. However, don�t be afraid to take risks sometimes!

For Students: There is no Wrong Way to Start your Journey

If you are a post-secondary student and are at the beginning of your professional career, or haven�t even really started yet, the path ahead is quite daunting when you have so many options as to what your first move might be. Do you get an internship right away? Can you find a mentor ASAP? Do you need a 5-year plan? Do you join as many extracurriculars as you can? It seems as though you have to make the right first move, especially when you see your peers doing different things and achieving some levels of success. However, there is no right answer or right place to begin. University or college is the best time to explore different opportunities that interest you, and putting yourself on a set path may limit your potential. And trust me, your peers are not miles ahead of you though it may seem. Take the time to settle in and focus on your classes, and slowly take in the advice of the faculty members and organizations around you. Eventually, the better career moves for you will present themselves, and you will be progressing comfortably.

Amazingly, there are networks of people who are willing and happy to share their professional advice with others, creating communities of individuals who want to see each other succeed and prosper. I do not believe anyone seeks to give out deceiving advice to the detriment of the receiver. However, paying attention to what advice others are offering is important as an exercise of critical thinking and a way to practice how well we know ourselves. What works for someone else might not work for you, and a good amount of luck goes into people�s success stories. Of course, putting in time and effort towards your goals is key, but there are so many factors that come into play when a person lands their opportunity, such as their network, past failures, and simply waiting for the right opportunity. Thus, take it with a grain of salt when a person attributes all their success to their �perfect CV template� or their �5-step plan to be the best manager�. Take what you may find useful from their stories and continue to build up your path to your eventual success. And when it�s your turn to offer some career advice to others, you can remind them of these guidelines and ease their minds as well.