apple watch keeps trying to connect to headphones through the iphone

I have a 2023 apple watch with cellular and an iphone 14 pro and a set of beats headphones that I use to workout. Every morning when I try to pair my watch with my headphones, it keeps trying to make the connection through the iphone, using the watch as a remote to control the iphone which plays the music through my headphones. I also use my iphone to play music through my car stereo.

Here's what I do in the morning to pair my headphones with my watch.

1) Turn on my car and connect my iphone via the usb input and make sure the music is playing.

2) I then awaken my apple watch and select the playlist that I want for my workout

3) after selecting my playlist it prompts me to select an output device, which I select my beats headphones

4) it appears to connect, but the playlist I selected disappears and the playlist playing out in my car on my iphone appears. The watch is now controlling the music playing on the iphone.

5) There are now two music options on the watch - one is controlling the iphone and the other controls whatever the watch is connected to via bluetooth (usually my headphones, but there is no music playing and I can not use the watch to connect/control the headphones until I break the connection with the iphone/car stereo

6) I usually can get to a watch sceen that shows something like 'command dock' which is checked and if I scroll down, I can select 'control other speakers' and re-select the headphones. Usually this works, although often I have to do this several times before I can break the connection that it seems to default to that uses the watch to play through the phone.

How do I stop the watch from defaulting to trying to connect through the phone?