I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while the other day and we ran through the usual catch-ups. She's doing some really stellar things and I was so happy to hear about her new projects. I, on the other hand, began to drone on about how I've been feeling stuck. "What about that thing you were working on?" she asked, in reference to a project I have bubbling. "I know I should submit a proposal about it..." I began. She sighed and waved my words away and said "Girl, don't get caught up in the shoulds!"
Obviously, I've been sitting with that statement. We are all guilty of it - we know what we should do but we, for whatever reason, don't. And on the surface, we don't do that list of shoulds because they're difficult tasks. But... are they? Are they any more difficult than anything else we do every day? Or are they simply different than what we do every day?
Maybe the reason we all fall victim to the shoulds is because framing something as a should gives us an out. We know, deep down, we might not do it so if we leave it as a should, it's fine. We weren't totally sure of it anyway. No shame involved.
But why do we give ourselves these outs, particularly when the shoulds really would improve our lives considerably? I'm beginning to understand that we relegate goals to the shoulds because achieving them would actually challenge our self-beliefs. For example, when I was younger, I was severely overweight. I was 50 pounds more than I am now when I was 14 years old. I knew deep down that I should lose weight, but I'd always been told that I was just bigger - that was all. Being just bigger was a core belief. A set of events happened that had me drop weight unwittingly and it suddenly hit me that no, I wasn't just bigger. This blew me out of the shoulds. Getting healthier was no longer a challenge to what I'd been raised to believe about myself.
Over the years, I hear people flippantly say they "should" write a book. That's a monumental task but it actually is 100% doable. But by keeping it as a should and not a must or a will, it's just floating out there somewhere. Not achieving it is fine because they don't see themselves as authors anyway. But... who is an author? Why can't we all be authors? Unless we truly have no drive to write - and that's totally fine - there's nothing at all that determines who can or cannot be an author other than self perception. Even those who struggle with grammar, like me, can work with editors (thanks, George!).
So this is all to say: don't get caught up in the shoulds. Sink down into those goals. Maybe they're lofty. Maybe they seem totally unrealistic. But... why not? If not you, who?
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