“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Are you someone who gets hung up on the notion of “getting it right?”
Does everything have to be a certain way in your life for you to feel satisfied?
Let’s talk about how that choice might not be your best bet.
When you are stuck firmly believing that there is a right and wrong way to do things, your life not only becomes smaller and more difficult, but you may also be cutting yourself off from emotional well being.
Let me explain.
Life becomes more difficult when you believe that your way of doing things is the “right” way. Anytime someone does it differently you judge them as wrong. This can cause frustration, anger and self righteousness on your part, which steals your peace of mind and puts a divide between you and whoever has been judged “wrong”.
Life gets smaller when you don’t give yourself permission to try new things. What if you do it wrong? When you are quick to give others a hard time for being wrong, you put added pressure on yourself to get over the fear of others reaction to you being a novice. When was the last time you allowed yourself to be ridiculous doing something new?
When you are constantly trying to “get it right,” you apply achievement and striving to everything you do. Inner peace? There must be a system for that. What is the five step process?
Emotions? Feeling badly can’t be right. You’ll just fix it right up. You’ll push that yuck away, have a drink, eat a sleeve of cookies or watch some Housewives until those pesky feelings go back where they came from.
The truth is that there are a multitude of ways to do almost anything. There is no one way to conduct yourself as a human being. There is no one way to be a daughter, wife, or friend. There is no one way to raise a child. There is no one way to play a sport, drive a car or keep a house. There is no one way to do laundry (although my husband and I fought about that one for years).
When it comes to your emotional well being, there is absolutely, positively no one right way to handle things. Feelings need to be felt. Inner peace needs to be found by going within–quietly and with no agenda.
The only way to deal with emotions and feelings is to be with them. To simply be.
But when you are so used to hustling and forcing and “getting it right” it becomes nearly impossible to slow down. You have no idea how to just be.
And when I say “you” I mean me too. I had my coach tell me this week, “Lorna, I can’t give you homework because you will just try to get it right.”
What she was saying is that I am so hung up on expectation, achievement and being right that she can only suggest that I practice breathing and being–everything else I will try to win at or seek approval for.
That is how ingrained these things can be. The striving, the pushing the go, go go of our lives.
So please don’t think that I have this down either.
While we pay lip service to variety being the spice of life, there are very few people who actually embrace difference and diversity.
If it isn’t what we know, it scares us and we call it “wrong.” It feels safer to judge it and keep our distance from it than to figure out if we could learn something from the person doing it differently.
The obsession with “getting it right” is another way of not being fully present. It is another way of not accepting life the way it is and of separating yourself from others. It is fear dressed up as judgement and striving.
Would you be willing to let go of “getting it right”? What if you tried something new with no pressure or expectation? What if you gave yourself permission to be with your feelings? How much might open up for you?
If you would like help trying these ideas on for size, hit contact in the upper right corner of this page to schedule a complimentary Discovery Call with me.
Here’s to getting it wrong.
Hugs,
Lorna
In order to change your life, you must first change your mind.
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