Self-help advice is sometimes difficult to avoid. From comments about the best weight loss method to tips on how to handle relationships, these recommendations can be popular.

However, you don’t have to follow every self-help recommendation that you see. Be choosy and don’t let popular ideas sway you if you feel that it’s not right for you or your situation.

Consider these popular recommendations:

1. Stay positive. Self-help recommendations about staying positive are abundant, but they aren’t always helpful. It’s not okay to ignore your feelings and pretend to be positive. Negativity doesn’t have to be embraced, but it also can’t be ignored.

* The key is to recognize and acknowledge your feelings, even if they’re negative or sad, and work through them.

2. Believe that you can do anything. At its core, this self-help recommendation is trying to encourage people to do great things and find confidence. However, it can be harmful for those who have real limitations.

* It’s important to strive for greater things and believe in your abilities.

* However, it’s also important to understand that you’re human and have limits. For example, you may want to believe that you can work without sleeping for four days in a row, but your body will suffer, and you’ll burn out.

* Each person has unique talents and abilities, but this self-help recommendation makes it sound like anyone can do everything. On the contrary, it’s better to recognize your gifts and focus on them.

3. Just ignore the pain. This self-help recommendation is used in several ways, including telling people to ignore the pain while working out. Blindly following this advice can lead to serious consequences.

* Pain while exercising can be a sign that you’re pushing too hard. It’s your body telling you to slow down before a serious injury occurs.

* This phrase is also used to tell people to ignore the pain from other things like bad relationships or unhealthy situations. Pain is your body and mind telling you something is wrong and needs to be changed or fixed. Pay attention to it.

4. Embrace change. Change can be a positive force, but it’s not always necessary.

* Some self-help recommendations make it sound like embracing change is the only way to find happiness. Although change is necessary at times, it’s most beneficial to love your current life.

* If changes are happening, and you can’t control them, then do what you can to benefit from the change, or work through it, and move forward.

* However, you don’t have to constantly change things and add variety to please others or follow a guru’s advice. You can simply enjoy what you have at whatever level you are at and find joy.

5. Follow a specific diet. There are many self-help recommendations about following specific diets and only eating certain foods. Unfortunately, you can spend years trying diets and watching them fail without seeing results. This self-help recommendation forgets that each human body is unique.

* Although diet advice is popular and prevalent, it’s important to find your own path.

* You can’t pick up a diet book or online plan and expect it to instantly fix your body. Instead, you have to figure out what works for you. There’s nothing wrong with reading about diets and using them as general guidelines, but they may not be enough.

* It’s better to develop a diet and meal plan that fits your lifestyle, budget, allergies, and other concerns.

Self-help recommendations are hard to ignore. Keep in mind that each person’s situation is unique, so some recommendations may not apply to you.