Shoulding On People. Avoiding Blowing It #242

Stop Shoulding On Yourself And Everyone Around You And Just Do The Should.

I am very guilty of this. Many times through out my writing I suggest what people should do. We should all over others but mostly we should all over ourselves. It happens far too much. Hell this article is a should of not shoulding.

The point being that should is an implied try, not a firm commitment of anything. It’s simply a think about doing something. Maybe in a different way then what your you are currently doing. But you’re not really required to do that new something.

That’s why shoulding on ourselves is so dangerous. We know we need a change so we’ll say to ourselves we should make that change. But since we don’t have a firm commitment to it, we’ll except the should as yet another postponement to get around to eventually.

I think the definition of should could be, kind of wanting to something but not really and if you can find an excuse to avoid it you most like will.

That’s why when we find ourselves saying we should do something. We need to immediately drop what we’re doing and take the tiniest action towards that goal. This way we start to clean up the mess should has left all over our lives. If you find yourself saying, “I should learn to play the guitar.” You have 5 seconds to go find a guitar and strum some chords. If you say, “I should write that novel.” You have 5 seconds to find the nearest piece of paper and write the first sentence.

Use the word should as the spring board of action. Instead of the crutch to inaction. If we know we should do something just do it. Don’t justify putting it off any longer with the language we choose to use. Should is not eventually, it is now. Do it now.