When was the last time you were having a conversation, or listening to someone else’s, and you overheard false information – that you knew was wrong.  Did you have a burning desire to correct them?  Did you blurt out the correct information?  Why?

Can you recall?  Did someone name the wrong actor when discussing a character in a movie?  Or mispronounce a word?  Or describe a situation in a different way than you recall it happening?

Does it ever pain you, even in the slightest, to say the words “You were right”?

For some reason, it seems that most of us have an extreme desire to always be correct.  It doesn’t matter if the topic is of importance.  We just have to be right, because we believe we are.

What about the last time you were the one being corrected?  You weren’t lying on purpose, of course, but you either recalled something incorrectly or misspoke.  Someone corrected you.  It didn’t feel particularly great.  Because again – we HAVE to be right.  All the time.

Not only do we often make others feel less than fantastic by correcting them, but until we learn to control this impulse we are selling ourselves short in other areas of our lives.  Do you ever publicly correct your spouse?  What about family members?  Your child? Why?  Can we dig deep down and listen to why we felt a need to correct them and whether or not we want to continue doing that?

As humans, especially in this Western society, we let a LOT of things bother us.  We let really small things bother us.  But there is a way to control this.  And we all have the power.

Subconsciously, whether we want to believe it or not, we have a need to be correct.  Just how dangerous can this be, though?  Is it really that bad to let yourself correct people when they make the slightest little error in their speech? Yes. 

Here’s why: until we learn to control whether or not we are actually making the right decision or simply giving in to our desire to be right, we are selling ourselves short.  Imagine this scenario:

Is it possible that perhaps a subconscious desire to be right, to have our truths be correct, impacts this for Sally?  Her belief system goes so far against finding a good guy.  She could trip over Mr. Right’s foot tomorrow and fall into his lap – but because her belief system is that she won’t find him, she wouldn’t even notice him.  Until she learns to face her “truths”, she has no clue of their impact.

Our subconscious desire to be right can get in the way of our success time and time again.  We get advice about something that contradicts our beliefs or choices.  We get the same advice over and over again.  We choose not to take it.  Because whether or not we want to believe it, we want to be right.  If we make a change, it reveals that we made a mistake.  Our bad decision will show.  We’ll be found out.  If we choose not to make a change, we can still have a chance of being right. 

Maybe the guy we are dating who we know isn’t the best for us will change.  I mean, he keeps telling me he is going to.  I want to believe him SO bad.  Everyone tells me he’s not the one.  If I leave him now, everyone will know about my stupid decision to date him in the first place.  They will be right, not me… how embarrassing…

Or maybe we have a belief about money.  Perhaps growing up in poverty ingrained in us a theory that money will never come to us.  We will never have enough.  We always need to worry and stress about it because it is the root of all evil and we can’t possibly ever be financially secure.  Rich people suck anyways. 

Since we HAVE to be right, making smart financial decisions, continuing our education, or taking smart financial risks to make more money can’t be an option.  We subconsciously don’t even try to change our financial status because it goes against our beliefs about what is possible for us.  We don’t believe we are capable of more.  

Because it is subconscious, it can be very difficult to even realize this is part of our decision making process.  We really have to believe and understand that this is something we all do. 

We simply have got to start asking ourselves about our “truths”. 

Next time you hear yourself thinking limiting beliefs such as:

“I’ll never meet the right guy”

 “I’m broke”

“I’ll never make six figures”

“I’ll never be able to find a job I like in my field”

“I’ll never find a way to make money in my field”

“I’m always going to be overweight”

Ask yourself:

“Why do I feel this way about (money, family, relationships, etc)”

“Is this TRUE or is my one of my “truths”?

“Can I change this belief?” (hint: the answer is yes)

“What can I do to challenge this belief?  To face my fears about this topic? To create a new belief system?

It all starts by realizing why we have certain ingrained “truths” that we are die-hard believers in.  Once we identify these, we are on the road to changing them. 

It’s time to rewrite your story.