NLP Coach | Helping you get unstuck and free of relationship anxiety

Are you plagued by the shoulds?

Should you or must you?

Hmmm…..doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it? In fact, you could compare a case of the shoulds to an unpleasant event that happens during flu season, but we won’t go there, will we? : )

I don’t know about you but when I was a child (a long time ago, but I digress), it was very common for my parents to tell me “Sherie, you should clean up your room, now”….”Sherie, you should dress like this”….”Sherie, you need to get straight A’s, anything less is unacceptable” (that was my grandmother who said that, actually). As I got older, there were other people who told me what I should do. The church I belonged to said that “All young women should be married by the age of 19”. I heard “you should stay home” and “ you should work”…..man, was that confusing or what?? We’ve all been there in one way or another, haven’t we?

I find myself saying that to my own children and have to catch myself in time to stop it before it runs out of my mouth, unbidden. What’s wrong with saying to your child or yourself that “you should ____ (fill in the blank here)"?

I’ll tell you. In NLP, it is referred to as a modal operator of necessity. Let me explain in somewhat simpler terms. It’s a statement that is being placed on you by someone else that has implicit in its' meaning that it is necessary and there is NO CHOICE. YOU SHOULD.

Think about it. Do you feel good about yourself when you say “I SHOULD do the laundry today” ? Let the words sink in and get in touch with how you feel when you think or say that. It is not very empowering and for a lot of people, it comes with accompanying bad feelings. Personally, it makes me shudder.

Get out a pen and paper and make a list of the “shoulds” that you tell yourself on a daily basis. Go ahead, I’ll wait here………..done? Great! There might have been another word that snuck in there….MUST….it’s another sneaky one. Now, ask yourself, how does telling myself this inspire me, motivate me to be a better person, empower me in my relationships? I am interested in that……my clients find that hitting themselves over the head with a hammer (or the words “should” or “must”) is an ineffective way to get what you need done, done.

The next time you hear that little voice in the back of your head saying, for example:

I should be at home full time
I should work outside of the home
I must clean the house thoroughly everyday
I must keep the dishes done
I should wait until tomorrow

Ask yourself this question right after…..”According to whom?”…..you might be surprised at the answer you get.

Does this mean that you are given a free pass to leaving the dishes undone, the family unfed, and not filling any of the responsibilities that you have on a daily basis? Definitely not! It just means that you understand that you have a choice, it always was your choice, and you just didn’t know.

It is the change of one word in the sentence and it is a powerful one. See the difference? Say these sentences out loud and you will notice that it feels very, very different, in a good way.

I choose to be at home full time
I choose to work outside of the home
It is my choice to clean the house
I want to keep the dishes done
I can wait until tomorrow

You will find that it is easier to get the things done that you want to get done in a faster, simpler way, if you monitor your self talk and see it as choices instead of should or must.

If this has struck a chord with you, let me know…..here in the comments below or feel free to be in touch on facebook! I look forward to seeing you over there!

P.S. There is no gender bias implied here! The “shoulds” and “musts” have been applied to both men and women!! : )

Remember, the relationship you have with you is important and knowing yourself is easier than you think!

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Do you have a love/hate relationship with time management? I can help……

I’m one of those people who knows what time it is without a watch to within 15 minutes….I am always on time…in fact, I consider myself to be late when I am less than 15 minutes early!!! Silly, right??

Some people are always late and the difference that makes the difference is that we all organize time differently. Even though I know what time it is, it is difficult for me to organize my time and PLAN it! Days can go by without my feeling that I have actually accomplished the things that I wanted to. Oh sure, meals were thrown together and the house was reasonably clean, but still……the projects that I wanted to work on would languish on my desk, begging for my attention. I tried all kinds of systems, planners and computer programs and nothing seemed to work. Then, one day, I sat down at my desk and began to doodle on a large art pad that I had and I came up with this.

Time management mind mapping

…and it worked!!! I didn’t feel pressured to do it, like it was something I should do….it just worked. I have been studying NLP for a long time, since 1996, and I thought to myself “Is this because you are a visual person?? Have you been trying to fit yourself into a mold that doesn’t work??” and I had an “AHA” moment….just like that!

: ) Do you find time management difficult or have you found a way that works for you?

If you have found a way that works, congratulations, you are one of the lucky few! A lot of us struggle with trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, trying out system after system, thinking that if only we could change ourselves, we could be successful at this time management thing. Have you ever thought that perhaps the time management systems were at fault, not you?

Hmmm…..interesting, isn’t it? Why would they be at fault? They worked for your neighbor, your boss, your Aunt Mae…….why not you?

Neuro Linguistic Programming has put forth a theory…..a theory that we all have different ways of representing the world to ourselves. In fact, each of us have a unique way of “mapping” this world that we live in. Even though most of us have a good grip on the five senses, we tend to favor one over the others and it becomes predominant for us to represent the world in that one sense.

For example, if you are like me and are a person who favors the visual system, you prefer to learn by “seeing” it, school was easier for you if your teachers put notes on the board, where you could see the learnings. So, if you are a visual learner and you are using a system that forces you to write everything down in lists, it might not work unless you do some tweaking, like adding some cool doodles, flowers, etc.

That’s why the mind mapping picture that I drew worked for me…..and made it easier to follow. I now had a “picture” of the way my day was supposed to look like. Doodles on a list, pretty colors of ink that the list is written in, interesting paper, all of these are more ways that a visual person could use to make their time management more user friendly! Try some out and come up creatively with your own ideas! I would love it if you would share!

If you needed to “hear” the teacher in order to understand your classes, you might be an auditory person. If you prefer the auditory system, you have some interesting choices. You can record yourself, on your phone or on a recorder, and listen to your to do list. Or, if you don’t have access to those tools, you can write your list out and read it out LOUD to yourself. Try it and see! It’s okay, sometimes, to talk to yourself…..you might not want to do it around other people though. ; )

If you needed to “write” things in order to make them clear to you, you might be a person who favors the kinesthetic or “feeling” system. For the kinesthetic, you can work well with the traditional systems, pen and paper. Find a pen that you really like, possibly one with a grip, so that you can “feel” it as you write and choose paper that has some texture.

These are a few ideas, there are a lot more, and if you want, you can come up with more….can’t you?

So, if you could imagine how being more timely and organized could help you, what would it look like, sound like or feel like and then ask yourself “What would happen if I gave myself that gift?”.

Remember, the relationship you have with you is important and knowing yourself is easier than you think!

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