Shownotes
What happens when what you ‘should’ do is actually holding you back? If you are struggling to find or keep your momentum, it’s possible the list of things you ‘should’ do is part of the problem. Today’s episode is about knowing when that’s happening, and how to give yourself permission to let the ‘should’s’ go so you can find your flow.
Plus I share my new experiment that's about letting go of what I 'should' do.
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Transcripts
I can still remember the look on her face when I said it. I
Speaker:honestly don't think she believed me at first. We were on a call to
Speaker:help her with her notion space. But as the call went on,
Speaker:it became really clear that Notion was not a really good fit for her. She
Speaker:wanted it to work because she felt like she should
Speaker:be using it. And so when I told her, let go of
Speaker:Notion and just go back to what you've been using for a long
Speaker:time now, which is Apple Notes, she looked like a
Speaker:mix of both relieved and shocked. It
Speaker:was no secret. At the time, I was a huge fan of notion. I was
Speaker:teaching it. I was and still am a notion ambassador.
Speaker:But for her, it was not going to be sustainable. It
Speaker:was not a good fit. And as we talked more, it became
Speaker:clear she had a pattern of using Notion for a few weeks and then
Speaker:she would slip back into using Apple Notes and then she'd
Speaker:start to get mad at herself because she struggled to find what she was looking
Speaker:for. Starting to remember, remember or struggling to remember, did I put it in Apple
Speaker:Notes? Did I put it in Notion? And it was starting to mess with
Speaker:her. And this was all because she convinced herself she should
Speaker:use notion, even though her instinct was always to go back to Apple Notes.
Speaker:So somewhere along the way, she got this idea in her head
Speaker:that Apple Notes was too basic or that it was inferior to some of
Speaker:the option other options. It did not have as many
Speaker:bells and whistles as some of the others. And so she started to compare it
Speaker:that way. And even though she liked the idea of
Speaker:letting go of notion, her instinct was to start to consider
Speaker:other options instead, like asana or ClickUp.
Speaker:So that was her falling into this should trap.
Speaker:And that's what today is all about. This idea of we
Speaker:should do it and it's actually holding us back.
Speaker:So when we catch ourselves, when the should is
Speaker:getting away in the progress, when someone else's ideal way of doing things
Speaker:is starting to become a barrier, this is a really important skill for us to
Speaker:have. How can we tell, though, if should
Speaker:is a problem and then what can we do about it?
Speaker:So let's start with the word itself. And I looked up
Speaker:Oxford Dictionary and there are actually multiple definitions of should, but the very first one
Speaker:and the one that we are talking about is should.
Speaker:Verb used to indicate obligation, duty or
Speaker:correctness. Typically, when criticizing someone's
Speaker:actions, you should do it this way. So the
Speaker:word implies a pressure to act a specific way.
Speaker:Now, I don't know about you, but I use the word should Every
Speaker:single day I should empty the dishwasher in the morning. I should
Speaker:set a reminder for that task later in the day. To me, these are part
Speaker:of my daily life and I don't find them harmful or
Speaker:disruptive. They are based on real experience of what
Speaker:actions tend to help me be an adult.
Speaker:So when I hear myself say I should empty the dishwasher in the morning, sure
Speaker:I may feel a momentary resistance because I don't like
Speaker:emptying the dishwasher, but I also know future me will be thankful that I did
Speaker:it. It's a minor irritation hearing that type of should.
Speaker:Now let's compare that to when I hear myself
Speaker:say I should spend two hours crafting the perfect
Speaker:thumbnail for YouTube to optimize clicks on my videos.
Speaker:That that feels very different. That feels like
Speaker:pressure. That also feels like self criticism for not
Speaker:living up to the standards of YouTube. According to the
Speaker:pros, those are two very different experiences for me
Speaker:or my earlier example of a person telling themselves they should
Speaker:be using notion in order to stay organized. There is a form of pressure
Speaker:and it can start to mean that you resist doing what's right
Speaker:for you based on what you believe others think you
Speaker:should do instead and recognize the difference.
Speaker:Recognizing the difference is about paying attention to the
Speaker:impact it has on you. So even the same
Speaker:sentence can shift the impact dramatically. Let's
Speaker:consider the words oh, I really should do it this
Speaker:way. Now one version of that comes with
Speaker:pressure, self criticism, and judgment that doing it another
Speaker:way is somehow inferior. It might sound like oh,
Speaker:I should really be doing it this way. Now
Speaker:that could also be lightweight. That same
Speaker:sentence. It could be a passing thought like oh, I should really do it this
Speaker:way. Exact same words, very different
Speaker:impact. One has pressure and self criticism,
Speaker:the other just kind of feels light and passing. Almost like a realization,
Speaker:oh I should do this. And once you can tell the difference,
Speaker:that's where it's easier to catch yourself when you can feel the weight and
Speaker:pressure of a should. And this is where you need to
Speaker:pause and ask yourself, is it true? So
Speaker:to challenge this assumption that you should do things a certain way,
Speaker:starting to ask questions like who said so?
Speaker:Why am I buying into this idea? And is
Speaker:there evidence that another way will work for me?
Speaker:How do I feel when I imagine letting go of this obligation
Speaker:I'm putting on myself? What would it look like to try
Speaker:a different way and also then pay attention to what happens when I
Speaker:try a different way? Just like any mindset
Speaker:shift, it's about challenging your existing beliefs,
Speaker:and the best way to challenge them is through taking small
Speaker:actions and seeing what happens. What if I
Speaker:go with my instinct here? What if I try things that
Speaker:feel more natural to me? Or my favorite
Speaker:three questions. What would it look like if it were easy? What would
Speaker:it look like if it were fun? And what would it look like if I
Speaker:were fearless? Contrasting those to all of the shoulds we're
Speaker:putting on ourselves now, the important
Speaker:part is permission. I need you to give yourself
Speaker:permission to let go of the shoulds,
Speaker:permission to experiment based on what might work
Speaker:better for you, and permission to change your mind if you try something and you
Speaker:realize it's actually not that great of a fit and you need to do something
Speaker:else instead. And sometimes it can actually
Speaker:help to hear permission from someone else. Like on that
Speaker:call, when I said let go of notion. The
Speaker:relief she expressed was a sign that she wanted
Speaker:validation that her way using Apple notes was
Speaker:not inferior or not wrong. It's just simply another option.
Speaker:But it's not always obvious to us right away. And sometimes it's hard to give
Speaker:ourselves permission. If you are struggling to give yourself
Speaker:permission to make a change, to let go of a should, talk to a
Speaker:trusted friend. Now, there are different types of trusted friends. There are
Speaker:the straight talking, you know, tough love type,
Speaker:and then there are the other ones. And I think in this case, you want
Speaker:the other ones, the kind who, if they knew you were struggling at all,
Speaker:they would not hesitate to support your decision to say, try the other
Speaker:way. Let go of the pressure, let go of the obligations. That's the kind
Speaker:of friend you want in those situations. Or maybe just
Speaker:hearing me say, right now you have permission to try a different way.
Speaker:Trust your instinct. And maybe when you hear this, you know
Speaker:immediately the thing you want to change right away. And that's perfect if
Speaker:that's the case. I've had those situations where as soon as someone says, you don't
Speaker:need to do it that way, I know immediately what I want to do and
Speaker:now I feel free to do it. Or maybe the idea of trying
Speaker:a new way actually feels a little bit daunting or scary.
Speaker:And if that's the case, start with small changes.
Speaker:Pay attention to what happens when you make those small changes, and then try making
Speaker:a few more changes Instead of diving into the deep end, you're sort of dipping
Speaker:your toe in the pool. Now this actually brings
Speaker:me to my new experiment, which is actually very similar
Speaker:to the first experiment that I shared on this podcast.
Speaker:It's about social media, but specifically
Speaker:it is about letting go of the shoulds from the
Speaker:pros in order to find a path that feels sustainable.
Speaker:So back in September, when I was trying to get
Speaker:more into Instagram, my first experiment was about Instagram. I
Speaker:had joined a challenge that was sort of a post every day in September. Now
Speaker:I chose to post every day on the weekdays and take the weekends off.
Speaker:And I really like the accountability that really, really works well for me. It's something
Speaker:I've shared over and over. However, the pace was not sustainable. So
Speaker:as soon as that accountability dropped off, the challenge was over and I started
Speaker:traveling, going to visit family, dealing with some different obligations I
Speaker:had, it completely fell off the tracks. Now when you combine
Speaker:this with the fact that I was starting to question what is my message and
Speaker:who am I talking to? That became sort of the perfect
Speaker:storm for me to just kind of go quiet. And
Speaker:I realized that, that this is actually a pattern that I've had over
Speaker:the years where I tend to kind of swing like a pendulum back and
Speaker:forth, where I have a tendency to kind of go all in and then just
Speaker:go silent for a while. There are different reasons why this happens.
Speaker:Sometimes there are true things stressing me out going on in my life and other
Speaker:times it's just me kind of being burnt out cuz I swung too far in
Speaker:one direction and then I just whiplash back the other way.
Speaker:This is common for me and I. The
Speaker:more I understand my brain, the more I can see why this happens. I tend
Speaker:to be someone who's also kind of impulsive. I get an idea, I go all
Speaker:in, and then I get tired. So the idea of doing something in moderation has
Speaker:never been my strong suit. However, this is part of my experiment
Speaker:is to say what would a sustainable approach to
Speaker:social media look like? And that doesn't have to
Speaker:be five days a week. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not because I couldn't
Speaker:maintain that pace. But what does it really look like? And so I'm
Speaker:starting to play around with different versions of what I think could be
Speaker:sustainable. That even when life gets busy, even when projects get
Speaker:busy, that I still feel like I could stick to. And I could
Speaker:experiment a little bit with having a backlog. Also not something that's very
Speaker:natural to me. But there might be ways I can use accountability
Speaker:as a way to do that. And so I'm starting to look at that. I
Speaker:haven't ironed out all of the pieces, but I did want to share that because
Speaker:I do think it's related to what I'm sharing today. So this idea of what
Speaker:you should do, and I mean, when it comes to social media and
Speaker:having a presence on there, there's so many shoulds. There are so
Speaker:many people giving advice, and some of that advice is pretty extreme about
Speaker:how often they think you should be posting. And so I
Speaker:want to ask myself, what is the thing that I need to be
Speaker:doing and questioning those shoulds and trying something
Speaker:different that I think instinctively will work for me. And
Speaker:I hope that you will also take a look at when you're falling into
Speaker:the should trap and letting it get in your way,
Speaker:letting it add friction to your life. Because once you do let
Speaker:go of the shoulds that are holding you back, you can feel the
Speaker:difference, and you can let go of that extra friction, and
Speaker:you can start to find your flow.
