The 3 H’s.
When someone in your life comes up to you with a problem, you either figure out, or ask them; if they want to be Hugged, Heard or Helped.
A lot of the time when someone is venting at you, they just want to be heard and understood, and I’m the type of man to want to immediately fix the issue, and it’s a bit invasive and often off the mark, so I reign myself in and ask them if they want to be Hugged, Heard or Helped. More often than not, they just want to vent and don’t want me butting in with solutions to their issues.
So the next time someone confides in you, take a step back and analyse how you should respond going forward, it really helped me understand more.