When I was younger, working as part of a larger newsroom, I had a bad habit: I always wanted to win.
This wasn’t about getting big projects done on behalf of my team. These were moments when I got hung up on some petty issue, decided someone was in my way, and that I needed to show them not just that I was right, but how right I was.
Why? Stubbornness, mostly. These were fights over tiny issues only I’d noticed. I wasn’t fighting over worthy causes — I’d found a few molehills, and decided to defend them like mountaintops.
But as I’ve gotten older — and in particular, ever since I started running my own business — I’ve learned that I need to give up on most of these fights. It helps to have a great support system that I can turn to when I’m feeling stubborn to remind me to ease up and move on. But it’s also just a matter of time: I can’t afford to waste time on these trivial issues. (I mean this literally: I bill by the hour. Losing a few hours over a silly fight is a money-losing cause.)
When I start to get stuck on one of these fights, I try to find the path of least resistance. Is there an easy way out? Is there an alternative solution? Is there a way for me to communicate clearly and quickly what needs to get done so we can all move on? I try to find the path, and then I get back to work.
At the end of the day, the work is more important than being right. It does you no good to go looking for the fight. Find the way forward, and keep moving on to bigger things.
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That photo is of a fencing match, and it was taken by Micaela Parente for Unsplash.