Being defensive is something I know we have all experienced, but some of us struggle with it more than we realize. Defensiveness will cause issues in relationships & stunt your personal growth, so we should do our best to overcome. Let's chat about it today!
Show Notes:
- We all have had those moments where we are real defensive & want to push back on what someone is trying to project onto us or claiming that we are or did & it’s never fun.
- And if you aren’t sure what defensive behavior would be, it can look like you quickly getting upset & offended by something someone said to you or about it, if it’s second hand, or you quickly denied what was being said without giving it any thought or different perspective or even trying to deflect & want to throw that person’s problems back in their face, you are defensive.
- Being defensive is likely a symptom of being insecure & not believing you are good enough. And this doesn’t mean you are a bad person, but it does mean you will get in your own way a lot & cause friction with some of your relationships.
- If you are unable to receive criticism, even if it’s constructive, without feeling like you’re being attacked, how are you going to be able to grow & evaluate your actions from a different perspective to see if it was wrong or not the best it could be? It’s not going to happen very often if you at least listen. And if you aren’t able to take responsibility for your actions because you often try to blame someone else because you’re defensive & don’t want to be cast in a negative light, it’s going to get old real quick.
- And having more open communication within relationships is the best way to keep those healthy & stable. But you can’t do that by not even entertaining the idea that you could be in the wrong.
- Something else to consider is that you could be defensive if you are already highly critical of yourself & aren’t allowing yourself to fail & make mistakes gracefully. There is no such thing as perfection. You are going to have missteps & you need to accept that truth. I say it all the time, mistakes & failures are some of the best learning opportunities. So shifting the blame to someone else isn’t going to serve you well or make you look good.
- Let’s chat about how we can work on being less defensive:
- 1. Recognize you being defensive.
- 2. See criticism as feedback you can use to better yourself or see yourself from someone else’s perspective.
- 3. Don’t interrupt when being told something unsavory & practice active listening.
- 4. Don’t criticize the other person instead.
- 5. Take a break from the situation.
Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.
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