One Reason Women Sabotage Their Success (And What to Do About It)

The Love Affair with Being Right

It is ultimately wrongness not rightness that can teach us who we are. ~Kathryn Schulz

I am astonished by how many bright, amazing, talented, skillful and beautiful women just flat out sabotage their own success. Simply astonished!

In just the last nine months of observing my female coaching clients, I have seen a pattern that I find a little disturbing. This is not exclusive to all men – I have had male clients who also sabotage their own success but the pattern points more to women, and that’s what we’re going to talk about here.

Confession: This is important to me because I can relate to it. Big Time!

I used to have a certain way of interacting with my world, and that way of approaching life, career, and relationships was not always inducive to happiness or success. In hindsight, the object of the game used to be the pursuit of being right rather than being happy or creating success or leading a peaceful life.

The pursuit of being right is one of my initial grave mistakes (and there are others, I assure you).

The pursuit of being right meant that I would press disagreements, discussions, and arguments – both professional and personal – until I had been “proven” right. Never mind that in the process, I ruined relationships, opportunities and further damaged my career at times, at least, I was right. Or led to believe so.

And I see a similar destructive pattern in women whom I have the greatest pleasure to work with and a few that I chose not work with, and it’s not because they don’t know how to be happy or successful.

It’s because they would rather be right all the time.

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10 Ridiculous Things Women Want to be Right About

What, you ask, do they want to be so right about?

Well, about everything that is wrong in their world. Allow me to share a few examples.

1. They want to be right that they are a victim.
2. They want to be right that they have been wronged.
3. They want to be right that there is no chance for them to turn it around.
4. They want to be right that they are alone and helpless.
5. They want to be right about the scarcity of opportunity.
6. They want to be right about the lack of money and abundance.
7. They want to be right about how ungrateful their children turned out.
8. They want to be right about their horrid bosses and their hopeless careers.
9. They want to be right that they are at a disadvantage and everyone else is “lucky” or “different”.
10. They want to be right about how their life partners doesn’t understand them. For that matter, they don’t mind being right about how nobody understands them.

Without even recognizing it, they desperately want to be right about how large and looming their obstacles actually are and how hopeless and powerless they are in the face of it, and, well, how they simply can’t change. Rather, the world around them has to change in order to please them.

What On Earth? This insanity, this ridiculous act of self-righteousness is killing your success and happiness in one big fell swoop. Is it really that important to be right?

How to Trade One Bad Habit for One Great Life

Erring is not only a moral problem it is also a moral solution – an opportunity To rethink our relationship to ourselves, others and to the world. ~Kathryn Schulz

So here’s what I want to say to that bright, amazing, talented, skillful and beautiful woman who feels this way.

This obsession you feel about being right about all the things that are wrong in your life is one bad habit. It’s worse than smoking, drinking and physically abusing yourself combined.

Because this single bad habit alone can wreak your life, it can rob you of all joy and happiness present and future, and it can singlehandedly ruin your chances of success, modest or grand.

Is it really that important to be right?

Is it really worth letting your ego decide the course of your life?

When has your ego ever served you well that you are gambling your success and happiness on it?

I’m betting never, but I could be wrong, and that’s okay (do you see what I did?).

My ego has never served me well. And that’s a toughie to admit, but we’re friends here. And as your friend, I am going to tell it to you straight up:

Give it up. Stop the lust for being right all the time. Drop your ego. Shed your skin. Become unconcerned about being right and give yourself a real chance to success and happiness in life.

Let’s Have a Conversation about This.

It is a silly pleasure but we secretly love shouting out: “Ha! I told you so! I was RIGHT and you were WRONG!” but if that’s your goal in life, how happy and successful can you really be?

Would you rather not know how to be happy and successful instead?

If you said yes, then you have to learn how to improve your relationship with ‘wrongness’. You have to learn to embrace being wrong about things small and large, and you have to mean it.

When you learn how to do this, you will drive self-sabotage away. You will take hold of your mental faculties, you will be in charge of your life and you will stay there until yo have reached every single goal and dream you set for yourself. Ready to take some action?

If you nodded yes, but you don’t know how to go about it, why don’t we talk? I have ideas and insights to share. If you want to schedule a phone call with me, fill out this questionnaire and let’s do a deep dive on how much you sabotage your own success and how you can reverse the process to open the flood gates of abundance and opportunity pour in!