Fact vs. Fiction: Choosing to Keep or Throw Away

“By stepping out of the ‘should’ trap, I shifted the locus of power in my life from others to myself. I didn’t have to change anything around me, only how I responded to it. Going through this process has been liberating. …

My outlook shifted from ‘I have to do laundry today’ to ‘I want to have clean clothes for the rest of the week, so I choose to do laundry today.’  Laundry is not being thrust upon me, but I am choosing it with eyes open.”

— Joanna Holsten

Now it is time to start working on releasing the “shoulds” and “should not’s.”

Task:

For your #1 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 #1 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 put an example here please 🙂

Stepping Out of the Should Trap, by Joanna Holsten

“‘I should make more money. I should lose weight. I should volunteer more often.’ In saying ‘should’ so often, I found myself feeling trapped by a sense of obligation and expectation. I felt this vague pressure to conform to external standards, to be someone or do something.