Acting Nice, Know-It-All & the Always Late Game
For most of us, playing one game or another has been a life-long habit and it will take awareness and practice to overcome and replace them with more productive ones. Below I am listing several more games and ways to change them. Please feel free to add what you observe about your own habits in the comment section. Sharing them will help other people to identify their own.
The Being Late Game - Running late every once
in a while is part of our hectic lifestyle and, if you live in LA,
it is in part due to an overly congested city. There are people,
however, who are always late. I had a client once who was at least
30, if not 60, min. late to each of our appointments. After first
addressing the issue several times and then charging for the unused
time, I finally had to end the coaching relationship because
it became utterly unproductive.
The being late game is a subtle way of dominating others by
constantly letting them wait for you. If this is a pattern in your
life, be honest with yourself: Is it really due to the
circumstances? Can you see the pattern in this? To really change
this habit you need to see for yourself the importance of being on
time. Then, you will be able to follow through with it. Otherwise,
you may lose a few friends or business partners.
Acting Nice - I talked about this game before
and I am putting it up here again. It’s an easy one to miss
because, truly, what can be so bad about acting nice, right?
Acting nice is a way of not being honest with yourself and others.
It’s putting on a smile when what you really want is to punch. It’s
skirting around the issue without ever getting to the point.
It probably started in childhood: “Be nice,” your mother may have
told you, “be a good girl.” Observe yourself, do you look the other
way when people misbehave? Do you avoid conflict at all cost? Are
people walking all over you? Learning to speak up and to tell it
like it is can be very hard if you never learned how to do so. A
great way to practice this is by role playing specific situations
with a person that knows you and can help you to express yourself.
Give it a try. As with everything, it will get easier with
practice!
Know-It-All - Are you one of those people who
always have to have the last word? Or, do you know that some people
don’t want to talk to you anymore because they can’t ever get their
point across?
Not being able to express themselves can leave others exhausted and
frustrated; they will feel isolated, misunderstood and, ultimately,
avoid your company.
Give people some room to express their own opinions. Hold your
tongue even if you think you do know it better and remember, there
are many different ways of looking at things. Your way does not
have to be the only one.
Related posts:
How to Turn Negative Habits Into Positive Ones #1
