00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 217, "Self-Respect and Being Wrong." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Well, hello there, my friends. Thank you so much for being here today. Glad to have you. We are just going to jump right in today. We are talking about self-respect and being wrong. This is one of my own personal nemesis in life, as I have struggled with believing that I'm wrong. I've wanted to be right my whole life and it showed up huge in my previous marriage, and so this is something that's been on my mind a lot lately for some different reasons and I wanted to work this out on my own brain. So I do that in a podcast sometimes. So here we go, like what is the connection between self-respect and being wrong? How can you even have self-respect when you're wrong? And this is the mystery that we're going to unravel today. 

01:24 

So first let's talk about being wrong. Now, this may be either you have an idea that you decide is wrong or that you want to change, like opinions change all the time, or this may be that you've done something in your behavior that you may not be super happy about. So whether it be beliefs or behaviors, most of us really don't enjoy being wrong. And depending on how 

we think about it, we may believe that it makes us less-than. We might feel embarrassment or shame when other people see that we're wrong. To avoid the shame or the embarrassment, many of us like to dabble in the land of perfectionism. Because if we can do something perfect, if we can never be wrong, then we can avoid the criticism and the judgment of other people. We can also avoid the criticism and the judgment of ourselves, which can sometimes be even worse than if it comes from someone else. 

02:23 

But the truth of the matter is, and I know this will be a shocker, is that we're all humans. Being wrong is just part of the game we're here playing. We will never be right all of the time, and yet some of us really struggle to believe that we're ever wrong. I was one of those for a lot of years. We seem to think that we always have the best information and the clearest judgment. So I'm working really hard at this point in my life to overthinking that I'm usually right. And just for accountability, I want you to know that I am getting a lot. better. And I will also tell you that I still have a long way to go. But here's something I've noticed from my own journey on this path: I'm wrong way more than I like to think I am. Serious, I know, hard to believe. And when I'm believing I'm right, when I'm actually not right, when I'm actually wrong, I am not stepping into honesty with myself. 

03:23 

So what if instead I started believing that I'm wrong most of the time, rather than thinking that I'm right most of the time? What if, when confronted with a different point of view, I responded by saying, "wow, I was thinking about that differently, I might be wrong about that." What if when someone accused me of saying something thoughtless and unkind, rather than going into defensive mode, I recognized it owned it and said, "you know what, you're right. I wasn't thinking when I said that. And I wasn't as kind as I wish I would have been." Here's something fascinating I have learned about defensiveness: when I feel defensive about something, it's because there is truth in it. So pay attention to this, because this is a remarkable indication that we can we can start catching on to with ourselves. If someone were to tell me that they don't like it when I smoke in front of them, I would laugh a little bit, I would tell them that I don't smoke. And guess what? I wouldn't feel defensive at all. I would just be kind of either amused, or maybe even a little bit confused, like why would they think that? But I wouldn't feel defensive. And the reason I wouldn't feel defensive is because what I was accused of doesn't have any foundation in truth. 

04:47 

However, when someone tells me that I was unkind, I can get all kinds of defensive. You know why? Because there is usually truth in it. Now, I'm not generally an unkind person on purpose, but every single one of us says or does things sometimes thoughtlessly that comes across unkind. And at some level, I know that I have been unkind when I'm confronted with this, but my primitive brain works so hard to protect me from pain, to protect me from seeing my painful behaviors. So it jumps into getting all defensive and trying to justify my behavior. So for me, feeling defensive is an indication that there is some truth to the statement or the accusation. And when I have my wits about me, which I'm more and more, I will slow down enough to start looking for the truth in what is said. When I push back with defensiveness, I not only disconnect with the person I'm speaking with, but I start to disconnect with myself as well. 

05:56 

So first, a disconnect with the person because they have seen something about me that I haven't seen. And I'm letting them know with my defensiveness that I don't believe them, that they're full of hogwash, that I don't trust their judgment, or that I'm not open to seeing my flaws or errors in thinking. Second, a disconnect with myself because if it wasn't true, I wouldn't feel defensive, but I do feel defensive, so guess what? It's most likely true. And I push back and I resist seeing it and understanding it, thereby I start to create a disconnect with the real me because the real me knows that there's something true there and I'm not paying attention to it. I'm putting off truly seeing myself, knowing myself, all for the sake of not feeling the discomfort of knowing that I was in the wrong. And this is where the self-respect piece comes in. When I avoid greater awareness and insight into myself, into truly understanding my flaws and my weaknesses, subconsciously, I start to lose respect for myself. I'm not being honest with myself when I choose not to see what's true about me. And this dishonesty creates a disconnect. I know for me, when I've dug in a little deeper with my coach about these concepts, I have come to understand that when I push back against being wrong, I am completely damaging this relationship with myself. The defensiveness is giving me an indication that I'm not seeing myself clearly. And when given the chance to understand myself more deeply, I resist acknowledging that I might be wrong. So I see a truth in my peripheral vision and I refuse to turn my head and look at it. Then, I also know at some level that I'm choosing not to be honest with myself, not to see myself for who I really am, not to know and be known by myself. I understand that I'm holding back because of fear of what I'll really see, fear of the discomfort the insight will cause, and fear for the work that I will need to do to get my life and my values into alignment. And when I know I'm not being honest with myself out of fear, again, I begin to lose self-respect. 

08:29 

So what to do about this? What if we just always kept it on the table that we might be wrong? That we might be wrong more than we're right? What if when someone gave us a little bit of insight about ourselves that we really decided to take an honest look at it? Because guess what happens when we set aside our fears and our discomfort and look at things we've been given the opportunity to see? We become more whole. Our values and the way we're living our life align more clearly and completely. We understand ourselves more clearly and we can have more compassion for ourselves. We create awareness to monitor ourselves and nudge ourselves in a healthier direction. We start becoming the next best version of ourselves and our self-respect increases. We begin to step into self-honesty, which is such a valuable tool for growth in our lives. 

09:32 

I love that as I have worked to acknowledge when I'm wrong, that I've discovered some amazing opportunities for growth. I've been able to work on these things. I've deepened relationships because I show trust in the other person and then also humility in accepting my flawed thinking and my faults. My self-respect has deepened because I'm growing into myself, understanding myself, and becoming a better version of myself. We're going to break all of this down into some steps, I think five steps of how we can work through this a little bit better. 

10:15 

Number one: open up your mind to being wrong and making mistakes. Really start to work to embrace the thought that you're wrong more than you're right. This can be helped along by the thought that guess what? There is nothing wrong with being wrong. In fact, being wrong just might be some of the best news ever because it provides an opportunity for growth. If you're like me, you've spent decades believing you were right more than you were wrong. In fact, I would always feel somewhat threatened by being told that I was wrong, so I was very resistant to it. But a belief is just a thought that we've told ourselves over and over and over until it becomes a belief. So starting to believe that it's not only okay, but amazing, when we realize that we've been wrong, is a belief that begins with a thought that guess what? It's okay to be wrong. Creating this as a new belief requires that you try on the new thought multiple times a day. There's nothing wrong with being wrong. "Of course I'm going to be wrong a lot of the time. Being wrong is to be expected. I always grow when I recognize where I'm wrong." Thoughts such as these will start to change your beliefs if you say them enough times, if you tell them to yourself enough times. Remember though that these thoughts have got to be thoughts that you believe. If you don't believe them at some level, your brain will reject them. So we want to make sure that we are tapping into a thought. 

 11:53 

Step number two: pay attention to when you start to feel defensive. Recognize your defensiveness as a red flag that you're bristling against the idea that you could be wrong. Defensiveness is your, "whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. Pay attention, something's going on here I need to look more closely at." 

12:14 

And then three: you're going to check this defensiveness by incorporating one or more of the thoughts from step number one. And remember, thoughts like "there's nothing wrong with being wrong. Of course I'm going to be wrong a lot of the time. Being wrong is to be expected. I always grow when I recognize where I'm wrong," right? So we want to start incorporating a thought like that. 

12:37 

Number four: take an honest look at your ideas and/or your behavior and ask yourself what the truth is in what you just saw. Okay, in what you just learned. So not every time that someone tells you that you're wrong, will you be wrong. But the willingness to honestly look for the truth is such a valuable skill. Learn to ask yourself, "where is the truth in what they're saying?" If you're feeling defensive, it's a pretty sure bet that there is truth there for you to discover. So rather than focusing on the fear of seeing something wrong, focus on the love for yourself and wanting to move into your next best version. Please don't be afraid to look for the truth. The truth is where self-awareness lies. 

13:32 

And number five: once you see the truth, approach yourself with a lot of compassion for being a human who has flaws and who is sometimes wrong or maybe a lot of times wrong. And then work to gently nudge yourself in a direction of creating a different belief or behavior, starting with your thoughts. Realize as well that not every time you find that you're wrong, are 

you going to necessarily need to change a behavior. Part of this is just being able to say, "I could be wrong about my idea or my opinion." And then we can move into, "wow, thanks for sharing your ideas with me. I can see things with a different perspective now, and it's changed my thinking. I like that." And what an amazing thing to be able to step into acknowledging that I didn't have enough information before. And now with this new information, it's changed the way that I think. I can see that I was wrong about the way that I was thinking. 

14:32 

I know that for myself, over the years, I've had some ideas and beliefs about people who are transgender. And I hadn't really, to be honest with you, put that much thought into it. I just saw it as a reasonable belief based on my religious and my cultural upbringing. And when I met my now-husband and this topic came up, he had some different ideas for me. And as he shared them and I realized at first my defensiveness and I was like "oh okay that means slow down." It means "stop, pay attention." As he shared some ideas, I realized that I really resonated with his understanding and that I was wrong about how I had been thinking. I was being unkind and unloving with the thoughts that I was thinking. I was being very judgmental, but because I've been doing so much of this coaching work I was able to listen to his different views and search for where I might be wrong, to look for the truth in what he was saying, to look for ideas that could help me be more of the kind of person that I wanted to be. And I found them. And I feel like I'm now armed with a stronger foundation in love for all people. I feel as though I have more respect for all people, thereby creating in myself more self-respect. My new beliefs align so much more closely to the person that I aspire to be. They are more loving, they're more kind, and they're more compassionate. How can I not have more self-respect when my beliefs are now aligning more to my values? Had I been unwilling to look for where I might be wrong, I wouldn't have grown into this better version of myself. And I love this new person; I love my viewpoint now. Whereas, before it just felt like a default. It felt like a lazy person's way of thinking and now I am intentionally choosing to believe and to feel a certain way. 

16:49 

So if you're resistant to correction or being wrong. I want to challenge you this week to open up to the possibility that there is still a lot of space for growth and progression for you. I want you to tune into your defensiveness. Use it as a signal that you can move forward and grow and progress. So when the defensiveness comes up, I want that to be a "whoa, stop." Take an opportunity here to look and to see what's going on. Okay? And I just want you to realize that this is the work of growing up into your next best self, seeing where you are wrong and then creating a safe space for awareness to be wrong. When you create that safe space, when you see spaces of growth and things that you can think differently and things that you can do differently ,and when you move into that space, greater self-respect is a natural byproduct. You've got this, my friend. Look for the truth. Look for the truth in things that make you defensive and you will be doing great.

18:08 

Okay, if this or any other podcast you have listened to from me has resonated with you and you're loving what you're hearing, I would love to have you share this with someone, either verbally or send them a copied link to their text message, to their email, so that they can start connecting with information that really really makes a difference in our happiness ,that really makes a difference in how we show up and how we feel about ourselves. And if that's just scary to you, you can share this with somebody that you don't know just by writing a review. The more reviews I have, it pops up the list so that when people put in related ideas of content that they're looking for this, will pop up higher on the list. So if you have not left me a review, that is a great way to share this content with people that you don't even know. Okay, my friends. Thank you. I really appreciate you being here with me every week and I appreciate you being willing to move into the discomfort of seeing yourself more clearly and of seeing where you're wrong ,seeing where there are behaviors that you want to change and ideas that you want to change. It creates a huge difference in the way that you show up and in how you feel about yourself and in your self-respect. You've got this, my friend, I will see you next week, bye. 

19:51 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.