Do you ever should on yourself?
I sometimes do. It goes something like this.
That colleague is getting a new certification. I should do that.
That family is going to Lapland for Christmas. We should do that.
Maybe I should be using Instagram. Maybe I shouldn’t have left Twitter.
That woman looks great with bright red lipstick. Should I try that?
Should I take up jogging? Should I get a virtual assistant? Should I be wearing “Mom” jeans? (The answers that seem obvious when I am thinking rationally are, by the way: no, it hurts your back; it would be helpful but not essential; and hell, no.)
Most recently, a friend was elected a Member of Parliament in the UK. I had a brief moment of “Should I have gone into politics?” that was particularly hilarious for the friend I shared it with as I have never been interested in politics at all beyond a commitment to voting.
Gosh, it’s exhausting.
What kind of should is it?
I hear it from clients too. We’ll be productively exploring a topic or examining potential solutions to an obstacle, for example, and I’ll hear those dreaded words: “Maybe I should just…” or “Well, I guess I should have…” But, inevitably, when clients preface a potential course of action with “I should” they never actually decide to implement that option. Why? Because they are shoulding on themselves. Then there are the clients that present a goal as a should. “I want to work with a coach because I think I should start…” And then there’s the more innocuous everyday should: “Well, I want the pasta, but I guess I should get the salad”, or “I like the blue coat, but I always buy blue, I should get something I don’t usually choose”.
Sure, there are times when our shoulds save us from ourselves, when they represent our better judgement, our higher willpower. But there are also times when they are just there to torture us, planting seeds of doubt and prompting us to question our life choices regarding everything from the profession we work in to the shape we file our nails.
Spin it to break the should
Personally, I usually get an attack of the shoulds when I’m feeling untethered, out of my depth, or away from my people. For a long time, I experimented with different mental tricks to get myself out of the shoulds, all to no avail. Finally I hit upon a ridiculously simple spin that helped. Prepare to be unamazed. I realised that I simply had to ask myself the same question I’d been asking clients for years. Faced with a client’s, “I should”, I almost always counter with a smile and some variation of, “I didn’t ask what you should do, I asked what you want to do”. It’s remarkably easy to turn that on yourself.
Recently a client was grappling with a dilemma regarding a chronically under-performing member of her staff. Her business adviser said she should just fire him; her right-hand-man said she should pay for more training; and her husband said she should find the employee a mentor. My client was struggling with all these suggestions, compounding them with her own judgemental meta-shoulds, “I should know how to help him more, I should have hired that other candidate, I should not be in this position”. Instead of engaging with and multiplying the shoulds (Which should do you think you should listen to?!), I asked the client to put aside all the shoulds for a moment, and think about what she wanted to do. Her answer was startlingly clear: “I want to try to help this person keep his job. I want to find out exactly why the employee is failing to meet his targets. I want to know if the employee is aware of this and what help he thinks he needs.”
“So, then, how do you want to achieve those things?”
“I want my head of sales to look at my employee’s way of working, his portfolio of clients and the products he works on to see if there’s something we’re missing – maybe an obstacle for him. I want to sit down with the employee outside of the office and have a proper talk. And I want to look at hiring an operations manager who can, among other things, take over HR issues in the future.”
And just like that, the background noise of all the shoulds faded to silence and the peace of knowing what she wanted to do settled in.
From should to want
It’s not always so easy, I know. Making good, healthy choices often means struggling between what we know would be good for us and the thing we want – like the proverbial devil and angel sitting on our shoulders. But there are other times when should has no place in the conversation, when it is a voice of self-doubt and fear rather than our better judgement speaking to us.
So, the next time your inner doubt pops up with the shoulds, before you start listening to that voice, ask yourself whether it’s your higher self talking (I should floss, I should go to the networking event, I should open a pension fund), or your inner doubt. If it’s the latter, question it. See if your should is a want. I should read the newspaper more. Does that genuinely interest me? I should apply for that management position, it’s the logical next step. Do I actually want to manage a team? We should get married, it’s time. Is that really what we want?
If your should is, in fact, something you desire, great! If it’s not, refocus on what you want and firmly ask that little voice to stop shoulding on you. It’s just rude.
Do you struggle with self-doubt, fear and uncertainty? Do you find it hard to make decisions that feel authentic and positively motivated? Do you find it hard to separate out what you want, what you need, and what others expect of you? Working with an insightful, grounded and empathetic coach with over a decade of experience offers you a moment to pause and think about what you want for yourself and how you want to make it happen. Contact me to find out more about working together.
