Overcoming Stubborn Pride: Evaluating Your Position for Growth
If you are unwilling to evaluate where you are, you’re probably in the wrong place. Unwillingness shows pride, fear, and complacency. Any of which are insidious distractions from living life well.
The Role of Pride in Hindering Growth
Pride keeps us from admitting our own foolishness, mistakes and errors in judgment. Also, it makes us cling to our own selfishness, which then leads us into even more errors in judgment. We’re unwilling to admit we got ourselves stuck, and yet we try getting unstuck by staying right where we are. In effect, We run from whatever bitterness or pain we’re simultaneously clinging to, unable to admit that control is a fallacy and God’s way might actually be best.
The Paralyzing Fear of Change
Fear of being alone won’t let us tolerate getting rid of toxic relationships simply because, at least, there’s a relationship. We fear that even building good boundaries to protect ourselves from toxicity will leave us alone and unloved. Exposure seems terrifying, though to carry on being in the wrong place heading the wrong direction will bring more devastation than exposure would. We keep pointing our fingers at everyone else, without taking any responsibility for our own position—the position we put, and leave, ourselves in.
The Complacency That Stagnates Progress
Complacency ties the pride and fear together in a hopelessly bound knot. You just don’t care anymore, so you plug along doing what you’ve always done.
The Importance of Self-Evaluation
I have worked with many people who didn’t really want to look at where they’d parked. And it was a good indication of how successful our sessions were not going to be. On the other hand, I’ve never heard anyone ever say they regretted evaluating where they were.
Questions to Break Free from Stubborn Pride
Here are some questions you can use to get started. They might be just the thing to get you out of the rut you’ve been in. Maybe their purpose is to open your eyes to danger ahead. If nothing else, they will help deepen your relationships with the people around you.
Evaluating Your Spiritual Life
Where are you spiritually? Where is your heart with God? Are you holding onto bitterness or unforgiveness anywhere? Is there anything you are arguing about with Him? What are you doing to develop your relationship with Him?
Assessing Your Marital Relationship
Where are you with your spouse? Is there something you’re allowing to fester? Are there things you’ve pushed under the rug that really should be talked about? Are you perpetuating or tolerating anything that dishonors God’s reflection in your marriage? What are you doing to build him/her up in Christ? What are you doing to deepen your relationship?
Reflecting on Your Relationship with Your Children
Where are you with your kids? Is there brokenness in your relationship that you need to address? In what ways have you shut them down and shut them out? What do you need to do to speak life into their hearts?
Analyzing Your Friendships
What are your friendships like? Are their lives of quality heading in a direction you want? Are there toxic relationships you need to back away from in order to grow in what God is calling you to? Do your relationships put a wedge in your spiritual life or your marriage?
Identifying Your Habits and Addictions
What are your habits? Your addictions? What are the strongholds of your life? What is sapping your energy and stalling your ability to love and live well?
By addressing these questions, you can overcome stubborn pride and make meaningful changes in your life. We can help craft a path for you to get started! Schedule a session with one of our expert coaches today.