The Weight of Shoulds

What if there was a scale that could weigh the energy of our words? I imagine one of the heaviest words would be “should.” “Should” is dripping with implications and expectations. “Should” implies that things ought to be different than they are, that what is actually isn’t right. While I can understand wanting things to be different in the future, “should” challenges reality and pursues change with an element of “not good enough” or rejection of the present.

Defining “should”

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word should is defined as a word “used to say or ask what is the correct or best thing to do,” and the Oxford dictionary defines should as “used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions.”

I can’t help but think that “should” is such a loaded word. It brings up right and wrong, obligation and duty, and criticism. The word is wrought with expectations that can come from ourselves, others, and our culture based on what we’re “supposed” to be doing. If you’ve ever seen the Disney movie, Moana, you can understand the expectation and pressure of “should.” There was a litany of “shoulds” and “supposed tos” that went along with Moana’s role as the next chief of her people, most of which did not fit her true desires and talents. While she was destined to be a great leader, protector, and provider, it was not in the same way her parents wanted. Her parents desperately wanted to keep her out of the ocean in order to keep her safe and to teach her to care for others by living off the land. They had a clear idea of what they thought Moana should be doing. Moana’s passion and connection to the sea was apparent from even her toddler years, however, and the need for alternative resources for the people of the island grew more apparent throughout the first third of the movie.

“Should” is also a disheartening word in that it can imply that someone knows better than you what you should be doing. It can make it tough- even seemingly impossible- to trust your inner compass when you’re bombarded with information about what you “should” be doing from other people and the external world. When we come to rely on external information only to guide us, it can be anxiety-provoking, almost like a ship without an anchor. Nobody can know better than you what you should be doing. We learn from experience and while plenty of people can give you advice, nobody knows what lessons you need to learn and what experiences you need to have but YOU.

Organizing life around all the shoulds can make it tough to tune in to you intuition. We’re constantly bombarded by advertisements telling us what we need, how we should look, think, behave, and interact. On top of that we navigate daily overstimulation from social media where everyone is curating the version of themselves they choose to share with the world, and that can lead to even heavier shoulds than the influence of people we don’t know personally. When we have come to rely primarily on external information to provide determination information for how we make decisions about showing up in the world, it limits our capacity to connect with our higher self.

Of course, it can be hard to feel joy and autonomy when you’re operating out of obligation, too. There are actually studies that demonstrate that people who feel they carry lighter obligations have more fulfilling relationships and higher levels of well-being. Obligation can also be linked to depression symptoms, according to this study. Shoulds can be linked to self-doubt and low self-esteem, too, especially if you’re often feeling like you’re doing the “wrong” thing.

The physical manifestation of should

Have you noticed that the word should: is in the word “shoulder”? As someone who carries a lot of tension in my shoulders, I’ve found this intriguing. I’ve often wondered if there’s a connection between the intensity or perhaps frequency of should’s a person says to themselves and the amount of tension they feel in their shoulders. This could, quite literally, account for some of the weight of shoulds, particularly when connected to the age-old phrase of “carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.” When feeling heavily burdened with significant responsibilities, I know firsthand how easily the shoulds sneak in to my thoughts and self-talk.

“Should” & self-talk

It would be a great experiment to track how many times “should” comes up a day in your self-talk. How often do you find yourself saying something like, “I should…”? Here’s an example: “I should go to bed early.” The underlying idea in that statement is that you know it is a good idea to go to bed early but you really would rather do something else. Going to bed early would be done out of obligation instead of choice when should is attached to it. Maybe you hear things like this all day in your self-talk:

“I should go for a walk so I can lose weight”
“I should turn off the TV and go read”
“I should go to the gym”
“I should eat salad for lunch”

There are so many great ideas in this list, but once we attach them to “should,” they become draining instead of motivating. It’s a lot more difficult to feel good about something you should do than something you want to do. A lot of times, people drag their feet on completing tasks on their “should” list. It’s not particularly empowering to live in a world of “shoulds” because an external force is always dictating what needs to be done. “I should go to the gym” is a lot different than “I choose to go to the gym.”

Should’s twin, Shouldn’t

Should and Shouldn’t are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee from Alice in Wonderland; they both look and sound alike, and it can be hard to tell them apart. Use of the word “shouldn’t” can have a similar impact to “should.” Telling yourself that you shouldn’t be upset about something, you shouldn’t hate your job, your feelings shouldn’t be hurt, or even that you shouldn’t have dessert can be just as detrimental to your relationship with your intuition, your self-esteem, and your sense of autonomy.

How many times have you heard yourself say that you shouldn’t post that photo on social media because it’s not good enough? That would be a great pattern to track to help you gain awareness of how shouldn’t shows up in your life.

How “should” can impact others

When we tell people what they should be doing, we fail to honor their inherent wisdom. It’s almost as if saying, “Well, I know what you should be doing better than you.” Yuck! Nothing about that feels or sounds good in any relationship. Of course, we can offer our thoughts and recommendations when asked, but the most important thing we can offer others is acceptance.

The next time you find yourself thinking about what someone else “should” be doing, I encourage you to pause and offer them acceptance instead. Another person’s way of life doesn’t have to, and isn’t meant to, fit you. If you’ve been asked for your thoughts and recommendations, you can share your ideas with some of these options to replace should:

Have you considered…?
Have you tried…?
Have you thought of…?
Oh, you could give this a try!
I highly recommend….
Based on what I’m hearing, it might be helpful to…
I wonder how it would work/feel to…

If your use of should persists in your conversations with others, it could be really helpful to take a look at what that’s about for you. Is it an attempt to control when you feel anxious? Is it because you’re still constantly hearing should in your self-talk? My guess is that it would perhaps have some roots in a fear-based response that’s been triggered, and having that awareness can be really helpful in how you show up with other people.

My formal introduction to Should

One of the first meaningful bits of life I started paying attention to in my life was language. It started with quotes in undergrad where I covered the walls of my dorm rooms with my favorite quotes. I knew it was important to have words around me that resonated with me on some level I probably couldn’t explain.

A few years, and many quote collages later, things really started to change for me when I started to gain awareness of how the words I chose to use reveal information about me and my understanding of the world. Prior to that awareness, I had wandered through the world without any idea that the words I spoke had any deeper meaning; the words I chose just seemed to fit intuitively, even if I couldn’t explain why.

One example that’s revealing to think back on now is how I would respond to someone asking me how I was in undergrad. I wouldn’t say, “I’m fine,” or “Oh, hanging in there.” My response was “Surviving.” I was absolutely functioning in survival mode and had been for the majority of my life, but I didn’t really have a conscious awareness of what that meant at the time. I didn’t know anything about the nervous system or why I felt like I was drowning in work and expectations, but it makes so much sense that my unconcious part selected that response.

I’m quite careful now about using the word “should,” especially in my self-talk. It most often comes up around rest for me, where I tell myself I should go clean the house or work on a project or do the dishes while I’m resting. I’m tracking this pattern and working to be able to enjoy my rest without the guilt of should joining the party.

Fill me in on how shoulds show up in your life in a comment so we can take our exploration deeper together.