Hey friends. Today I want to talk about something that’s showing up in my household. And it got me thinking about these little habits that we have that seem pretty small but might be killing our connections with other people.
In my family, I have a corrector. So what that means is that if you say something that’s an approximation or slightly off or incorrect or wrong, or you make a guess or something like that, this person will correct you. You understand why someone does something that like…it makes them feel better to be right. Correcting makes them feel like they’re right. They know.
But what happens when you’re the person who’s constantly being corrected is that it becomes a connection killer. You get irritated. Here we’re talking about this one thing and your correction is totally insignificant. Let’s just keep connecting and talking about this. But it’s become a habit for this individual and it’s pervasive. It’s everywhere and has become a problem when it comes to connecting. Now, this is just one example because there are other examples.
Me, for example, I love to tell people about how great I am. Things I’ve accomplished, things I’ve done, things I’ve experienced…this is a habit I’ve had for my whole long life. But while that makes me feel good and I think it’s going to make you like me, it actually kills connections with people. In order to connect with somebody, I need to experience how awesome they are. I need to hear how awesome they are. I need to pull that out of them. That’s how we’re going to connect. So that’s a little habit I’ve had for a long time that I have to keep in check, right? Because it’s not going to serve me when it comes to the important part of life which is connecting with people.
Another one we have in our house is an exaggerator. So if this thing happened twice, maybe he reports that it happened like five or six times (if it’s a good thing). That exaggeration is making him feel good, feel better about himself, he thinks it’s impressing you. However, if you’ve got a chronic exaggerator, you become suspicious of what they’re reporting, right? And so then you’re likely to pull back and it’s a connection killer too.
We all have these little things that we do. We want to feel better so we make ourselves look better because we think that is going to get us the response we want from the other person.
But if we don’t pay close attention, we might be losing that connection with people. We might be missing an opportunity to really have an exchange. And you can see it when you’re talking to somebody, if you’re paying attention.
If you get wrapped up in yourself and your own world and your own ego and feeling good about yourself, you may not realize that the person is starting to pull back energetically. They’re withdrawing, they’re turning away, glazing over. You gotta pay attention to that stuff.
So this is what I would suggest. Know what your little habits are. And there’s nothing wrong with them. We all have them. It’s okay. We’ve put those in place because they make us feel better. But know what yours are and when you see yourself excessively engaging in that in an exchange with somebody, watch their energy. Watch their energy.
Are they responding to you and you’re connecting? You’ll feel that. That feels great. But if you see that the person is starting to pull away or that connection is becoming lost or not ever being established, then it’s time to stop and say, “Hey, okay, let’s make it not about me. Let’s find out about them. Let’s get into what’s awesome about them.” So that you can keep those connections going because that’s really what we’re doing here is trying to connect with each other
And besides, if you love yourself deeply, you don’t need to have these silly little habits to make yourself feel better. You don’t. Now that’s a better focus, right? Trying to increase that self-love so that you don’t need to walk around being so awesome in whatever way that you choose to report. Right? All right.
Look for your little habits. Watch how they affect your connections and go out and love each other. I will see you next time.
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