Fact vs. Fiction: Choosing to Keep or Throw Away (Part 3)

Task:

Take out your list of “shoulds” and “should nots” again.

For your #3 priority item you listed think about:

1. What is fact about this should/should not?
   • Is it meeting a need?
   • Is this a personal need or an expressed need from someone else?
   • What facts support the claims this should/should not is making?
2. What you have “made up” in absence of actual facts?
   • Words like “always” and “never” are good placed to start.
   • What assumptions are you making?
   • How might you be catastrophizing?

Now, continue by writing down the answers to these two questions for your #3 priority item:

1. What about this should/should not has any validity and are you choosing to keep?
2. What about this should/should not needs to be thrown away?

Examples

Should: “I should make more money.”

1. Keep: money is necessary to live, I want to have enough money to live comfortably
2. Throw away: making lots of money means I am more important, the amount of money I make gives me value, having more things is always better, I need to always be striving to make more than I already do (I cannot stagnate)

Robert example