Help me to help myself

Hopefully you aren't being too hard on yourself.  Everyone needs help at times, and makes mistakes.  Everyone makes mistakes or can become indecisive.

There could be a few reasons:

It's easier to be objective when one isn't involved in the challenge

When emotions run high, bad decisions can be made too.  Also, some in highly emotional situations avoid the challenge completely by not making a decision, hope that it will resolve itself.

Or paralysis analysis sets in:  when it involves one's own life, we solicit everyone's advice, and keep re-assessing the options without doing anything.  Some people also ask everyone's opinion to take the monkey off their back and hope that the person they told the problem to will solve their problem so they don't have to deal with it.

The bigger part though is to figure out for yourself which motivating factors are your own, and come up with approaches for each one.  Whether it is writing down a list of all the components, with potential next steps, or having a someone to listen to you figure out what to do, or talking to a mirror, find out what works for you, and keep doing that.

 Best of luck! 

That isn't uncommon. Many people find that once the issue isn't them they become great advisers and clear thinkers. There isn't any real logical explanation to this phenomena but rather an emotional one. When people give advice to others they have nothing to lose and it isn't their life that'll be affected by the wrong choice. Once it comes to their own decisions the situation is different.

Another thing to remember is that when we come to give advice to others we aren't emotionally attached to the situation. This means that emotions don't interfere in our decision making process. When the decision is ours to make the emotional side of things kicks in and makes it tougher to reach decisions. 

I think this question is true of so many people. I think it takes time and practice of making decisions on your own, and even making lots of mistakes before you will feel most comfortable making the important decisions in your life without anyone else's help. Each time you feel you need to seek out help from others, try to imagine your best friend or family member coming to you with that same problem, and what advice you'd give them. Then apply it to yourself. Doing that often enough will eventually lead to it becoming second nature. Hope this helps.

I think this is a natural part of the human design.  You're in good company...  everyone starts out like this.

I've heard it said that we are "on the inside, looking out."  We are sort of in a box, and all the important things about us are presented to the outside world -- in essence, they're on the outside of our box.  We peer out at the world through a hole in the box, and what do we see?  We see the outside of everyone else's box, but not our own.  So it's easy to help them to see what's going on, but not to be able to do the same for ourselves.

This is why it's good to have friends, coaches, therapists, whatever.  They are all just people who can help us to get in the habit of looking at ourselves... with their help.  You can get a bit better at doing it yourself over time... but it's always good to have someone objective to bounce things off of.

Be good, work hard, and you have a good life.  Good luck.

My initial response was because major decisions in other people's lives don't affect your future.  Actually, when looking at someone else's problems, the "practical" makes the decision while in your own life, your "emotions" have a stronger impact on your choices.