At times it has made be believe that one can't really help people.
I think, rather, you need to meet people where they are. After one such conversation with a friend, my brother (who studies this sort of thing for a living), said there are models for conversation. In one model, there are five stages. I forget the details, but let's say one stage is recognizing you have a problem, the next stage is deciding you need help, the next stage is looking for help (I'm just making this up as I write). If you offer help to someone at stage 1, you're having a conversation they are not yet receptive to. So though everything you do might be useful and beneficial to the person at stage 3, you're just wasting your breath and possibly pushing the person into depression or anger if that person is at stage 1.
So the conversation in question is when a friend said he hated his life and wanted to change. I suggested some new things he might try. He was not at all receptive. My brother pointed out later that the friend wasn't really looking for solutions yet. His language showed that he was just trying to get comfortable with the idea that he might want to change or maybe even just getting comfortable with the idea that maybe there was a problem at all.
He was not yet comfortable with actually changing. So though I believe to this day that my suggestions were good (and well-meaning and non-judgmental and achievable and baby steps etc etc etc), they were ultimately detrimental to my friend.
