You might think the urge to be right is about pride. But what if it’s actually about survival?

Have you ever found yourself or someone else defending something and then doubling down on it? The conversation goes from exchanging ideas to making points. Then the heat of it turns up and you can’t quite figure out why.

It may not seem like it but the conversation has turned into survival. It’s human nature to want to survive. We all do it. And we do it through two deeply ingrained, often unconscious strategies: conserving energy and staying safe.

Your brain is constantly making assessments about what’s happening around you. To make decisions quickly, it relies on assumptions drawn from those assessments. This helps you save time and energy. Conserving energy is, at its core, a survival mechanism.

Taking in new information that contradicts what you already believe requires effort. So you default to what you know. That's an energy-saving strategy at play.

Then there’s, being right. You may not think of it as a survival strategy, but consider this, being right can be a sense of strength and intelligence, which can be a form of self-protection. Being right creates the illusion of control. It makes the unpredictable feel predictable, even if what you’re predicting isn’t good for you.

So now you have two survival mechanisms working together:

• Quick assumptions to conserve energy
• Being right to feel safe

Together, they create a feedback loop that keeps you locked into familiar patterns. This is how you end up subconsciously fighting for your limitations and repeating experiences you don’t want.

What if you could soften the grip of trying to survive?

Imagine this:

You’ve built an entire internal experience based on assumptions that may not even be true, and you keep those assumptions in place because it costs less energy than challenging them. Then you double down on being right about them just trying to be safe. Be gracious with yourself. You’re not alone. All humans do this.

But what happens when those strategies are gently interrupted?

When you loosen your grip on being right and stop recycling outdated assumptions, something new becomes possible.

A Client Story

One of my clients experienced this firsthand.

She was heading into her annual review and experiencing full-body anxiety. Beneath it all was a deep, familiar fear of rejection.

“How long have you felt this fear of rejection?” I asked.

“It’s been lifelong,” she replied without hesitation.

“This isn’t really about your boss,” I said gently. “You’re projecting this fear of rejection onto her. And that projection is doing something for you. What does it do?”

“It puts me out of control of the situation,” she said. “Then comes a lot of harsh self-judgment.”

I paused, then asked:

“Could you possibly be wrong about being rejected? What if she actually wants you on her team?”

There was a long silence. I waited.

“If she really wants you on her team,” I asked again, “what happens inside you then?”

“Oh,” she said. “Then it’s performance anxiety. I’m scared she thinks I’m stupid.”

“Are you willing to be wrong about her thinking you’re stupid?”

Then she said: “The projection makes me right… but it’s not something I want to be right about.”

“Exactly,” I said. “There is no freedom in being right.”

I watched her body soften, shifting from a protective posture into something more relaxed. There was even a flicker of confusion across her face, like something she’d long relied on had just loosened its grip.

“Would you be willing to be wrong about being rejected? Or seen as stupid?” I asked.

Another long pause. She looked at me.

In a previous session she created a mantra of “Just do the damn thing.” so I reminded her of her mantra. “What would happen if you just did the damn thing?”

“It would take away the anticipatory anxiety,” she said.

“And if you were willing to be wrong about being stupid… then what?”

She released a long-held sigh. Her shoulders dropped. “Then I could just do my work.”

The Work of Freedom

As human beings, we make assumptions and then act as if they are real. That’s why it’s so important to work with them. Without that awareness, we end up defending our own limitations.

So the next time you notice yourself recycling an old belief and working hard to be right about it, ask yourself:

• What am I assuming right now?
• Am I willing to be wrong about this?

Because the moment you loosen your grip on being right, something else becomes possible. You become present to new choices that are available to you. And that’s where freedom actually lives.

There is no freedom in being right.

​Keep shining! Julie​
​