Untangling Stressful Habits – The Need to Always Be Right
If you have been in my world for a while, you will know that I am passionate about habits and untangling stressful habits to live a fulfilling and whole-hearted life as a well-being. So I am writing a series to shed some light on some stressful habits that have come back in to my awareness recently.
Before I start sharing about stressful habits, let’s have a look at what I mean by stressful habits.
What Are Stressful Habits?
Basically – habits can be useful or not so useful, helpful or not so helpful, stress inducing or not. Sometimes we are conscious of our habit/s (i.e. often chosen and intentional) or the habit/s can sit within our blind spots or the unknown.
When I refer to stressful habits, I am referring to habits that are impacting our overall life, business or well-being. They could be adding extra stress, suffering or draining life force energy in our lives. The stressful habits could be showing up in one or a variety of areas within our lives (i.e. physical, emotional, mental, financial, environmental or social).
In order to start to untangle from stressful habits, we need to develop self-awareness, so we can be more responsible and take ownership of our own life. Today I wanted to introduce the need to always be right.
Unhelpful Habit: The Need to Always Be Right
Generally speaking, people like to be right. Maybe it’s because we have been conditioned from birth to defend ourselves or convince other people we are “right”. We are conditioned through our schooling systems, through sport, our relationships and the environments we grow up in. When I am talking about being right, I am not talking about being ethical or integrity, as that is quite different and a different conversation.
What I am referring to when I am talking about “being right”, is when one person is right, generally the other person is perceived as “wrong”. Generally, that is not so useful in life. What if there was another way? What if we could choose to be kind over being right?
Where Does The Need to Always Be Right Show Up? –
Like most of the other stressful habits I have been talking about, this habit can show up in most areas of our lives. From our relationships to our workplaces.
I wonder what would happen if we noticed when we want to be right in a conversation, paused and then asked the question Dr Wayne Dyer is quoted as saying –
“Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”
Over to You…
Now you have this awareness, what is your next step? Do you sense it could be useful from untangling from comparison? Feel free to share any insights on the need to always be right or a reflection below. Remember, this is not about changing things over night, you get to decide if this is something you want to change, so remember your self-compassion as none of us are perfect!
If you are ready to take yourself on the adventure of getting to know yourself (your true Self), why not join the Toolkit? A place where I share tools, inspiration and ideas to live a courageous and openhearted life.