Throw It Out Thursday: Stop "Shoulding" On Yourself!
The first time I heard this phrase used, it was used at me by my Life Coach, and it had me cracking up! I had never thought of my spiraling down a “what could have been” hole I used to go down in that way, shoulding on myself. It made perfect sense when she said it, it always starts the same, I think of something I wish I had done, or said, or sometimes acted differently. I should have said…. I should be doing… I should be more successful… The list goes on and on, but that’s just the thing, it keeps going without any solution. So today we are going to unpack “shoulding” and throw it the heck out!
'Shoulding' all over ourselves actually strengthens our belief that—left to our own devices—we cannot be trusted. Because so much of our behavior is driven by 'should,' we are losing our ability to distinguish what we really 'want.' We have been taught what we 'should' want, but no longer know what we actually want, and often confuse the two. Out of touch with our own 'wanting,' we have lost a sense of intimacy with ourselves. We know who we are supposed to be, but not who we are.”
- Nancy Colier, Stop Shoulding Yourself to Death, psychologytoday.com
I think this is an important place to start, thinking that we “should know better” or “should want to have (fill in the blank)” is an idea that comes from outside of ourselves. Let’s take for example the “should” of “said this to that person”. The issue isn’t what you said to the person, the underlying issue is how you reacted, it boils down to something that started inside of you first. The work to be done is, like all work, internal. But by going back over how we reacted to things, doesn't solve the problem either, it just further fans the fire. So the first step in ridding yourself of a “should” situation is to by noticing what affects us, what triggers us to react in a way contrary to who we want to show up as. What comes out of our mouths or our actions, begin in our minds. Negative thinking and putting yourself down can lead you down this path of shoulding.
Shoulding only leads you down this negative thought pattern, sometimes you being the target for your negative thoughts. It makes me think of Fight Club, honestly I don’t remember a whole lot as I am kinda squemish with fighting, but, what I got out of that is that it was all in his head. He was just fighting another aspect of himself, and that’s what shoulding is, it is you fighting a side of you that you don’t like, or didn’t want to come out. What was it that triggered you in that moment to react that way? Can you now isolate that trigger and become more mindful of it when you feel it boiling inside of you? This was the work I was given to do by my Coach, to sit with it, and discover what’s really going on. It’s like the quote above says, “Out of touch with our own 'wanting,' we have lost a sense of intimacy with ourselves. We know who we are supposed to be, but not who we are.” We have flown right past the part of checking in with ourselves, right to react-mode. Unlearning things like this take time and effort. Give yourself some grace to feel the way you feel, accept that it is real and ok. Then decide what action to take. And when you f@$% up, and you will as I do frequently too, remember that this is a learning process. However, this is definitely not Fight Club, and you will not get street cred by taking your own punches. Pause, listen to yourself, honor what you are feeling, choose how you want to feel. Act accordingly.
Good things happen when you tweak your thinking to replace “I should be or do such and such” with “I would very much like to be or do such and such, but if it doesn’t happen the world will not end”. The first thing you will probably notice is that you place a higher value on your work, achievements, and sense of self.
-Michael Schreiner, ‘Stop Shoulding All Over Yourself’, evolutioncounseling.com
Another side of shoulding that I have noticed fall prey to, is the thought that we “should be doing” XYZ, whatever that may be. My amazing, talented and hard working mama Life Coach as mentioned previously wrote a beautiful article touching directly on this point:
“Types of ‘shoulding’
· Past-Focus — I should have… where the primary motivation is judging
· Future-Focus — I should… where primary motivation is planning
Chronic “shoulding” is largely a first-world problem and is often driven by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). In a recent report by ScienceDaily, Dr. Darlene McLaughlin shares that “the problem with FOMO is the individuals it impacts are looking outward instead of inward. When you’re so tuned in to the ‘other,’ or the ‘better’ (in your mind), you lose your authentic sense of self. This constant fear of missing out means you are not participating as a real person in your own world.”
- Leslie Bosserman, “Four Ways to Stop ‘Shoulding All Over Your Life” medium.com
The root source of a lot, if not all, of our shoulding comes down to FOMO, not knowing our authentic selves. If you feel like you want to do something, check in with yourself as to why, is it because someone else told you or you heard that you should? Is it something you’ve wanted to do for a while? Does it resonate with you, with who you see yourself to be? Or is it Friday night and you feel like you should be going out clubbing/drinking/hanging out with friends/a date and the list goes on. There is a difference between doing thing because they are pieces or parts of your truth, or doing things because you think you should. The FOMO side of shoulding is really just learning how to have a conversation with yourself, and be honest about how you really feel, not how you should feel. Once you get set on what you want, then take appropriate steps to make that result happen for you, not for anyone else. You might find that in this process some friends or people in your life won’t be on board, this only means that you are in different places. You need to go on your journey of growth and sitting true in your authentic self, and so do they, maybe just not together at this time. Do your work, check in with yourself regularly, have uncomfortable dialogue with yourself about how you really feel. I promise, at the end of the day, whatever you thought you may have missed out on, you didn’t, you were right where you wanted to be, and that is always the best choice.
I love this from Wanderlust.com sums up the “should” and all it’s baggage:
Here’s the thing with should: If you are saying you “should” do something then, plain and simple, you are not actually doing it. Each “should” you pile on yourself, adds another unpaid obligation you now have to undertake to come into an integral relationship with yourself. You are creating the energy of owing something to yourself, something you “ought” to be doing but you aren’t and to top it off, it denotes that you are very guilty.
Life is meant to be lived, not to be spent thinking about what you did or didn’t do. Almost a decade ago now, I heard a quote from my life’s mentor, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, that really hit home for me and helped me learn to stop shoulding “the swiftness of your response shows the depths of your sincerity”, I heard this from a friend so I am not sure the location of where this quote can be found, but it applies nonetheless. Even right now, I had this blog almost fully finished last night, just some proof reading to do, but did Yin yoga at home with the bf and got so relaxed passed out watching the “Wonders of the Ocean World” documentary that followed it. I am a sincere and reliable person, this morning I had to have a conversation with myself deciding how I want to respond. The point being, I did my best this morning to not should on myself, that it is perfectly ok to post my Throw It Out Thursday blog the Friday after. It seemed, an appropriate lesson for me to have, and to share with you. I could have spiraled down a guilty self-blaming mindset, and push posting this until next month, but the guilt of shoulding would have been there, “this should have come out last month”. So I took my own advice from this blog.
When something comes up, something that could be a “should” just sit with it for a second. Decide where it’s coming from, if it is something you can change or take action steps to accomplish, and instead of shoulding, make a plan with yourself towards the result you want. You’ll find that over time, you are accomplishing doing more things, instead of thinking about what could be or what already happened. This is exactly what happened to me this morning. I woke up, knowing I didn’t hit my deadline for posting this, went through my morning routine of movement and meditation, and asked myself, what is really important? That every one of these goes out on a Thursday? Or that this one in particular gets posted a day late? What mattered to me was finishing up my loose end from last night, and sharing this all with you. No shoulds allowed. Let this Throw It Out Thursday blog be a starting point, and if you need it, a place to go back to, to help keep you moving away from the should and into your authentic you.
Till next time, be good to your skin and even better to yourself,
xx eri