‘Should’ beliefs affect your self-esteem because they make you feel like you are not living up to your own expectations. We often adopt them from well-meaning peers, but they are often not empowering. You can banish the shoulds whenever you notice them creep into your thinking.

How to dispel the shoulds:

1. Ask yourself: What are some things that I feel I should be doing?
2. List them on a piece of paper in any order. Next, on a separate piece of paper, or in a journal, write a sentence about each item that you ‘should’ be doing. Every sentence will start with the words ‘I prefer to… because…’ or ‘I prefer not to… because…’ Make sure you describe exactly why you prefer to, or prefer not to do the things on your list. Each time you complete a sentence, let the should go and let yourself feel less burdened.
3. Now that you have a number of preferences, you can choose which are most important to do now. Feel confident in your decision and focus on how you can take action to the best of your ability.

The sense of release that you feel when doing this exercise is wonderful. Feeling like you ‘should’ do so many things builds up quite a lot of pressure, creating a mental traffic jam that restricts further progress and creative problem solving. If you let go of your expectations and think instead about what you prefer to do, the tasks that seemed like chores actually become interesting again.

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