The thing about the word Should

If I could eliminate a single word from your vocabulary, it would be "should."

All week long I hear a variation of the following:

• I should eat workout

• I should be happier at work

• I should have a more organized house

But most of the time the “shoulds” don’t happen, and usually that’s because there isn’t a particularly compelling reason to do it. The “should” is usually an attempt to conform to an external obligation or expectation.

Meaning we think we should do something, because we think that is what is expected of us.

To illustrate this phenomenon, here's an example from my own life. I hate matching socks. HATE IT. So, when my kids were little, I just threw all the socks in a laundry basket and let them grab whatever they wanted each day.

This laundry basket caused me so much stress because I 100% believed that good mothers matched their kids' socks.

Every single time I looked at that basket and thought, "I should be matching those socks," two conflicting things were happening. On one hand, I didn't actually want to match them, but on the other, not matching them meant that I was a bad mother.

One day, I'd had enough of the shame and guilt, so I matched all of the damn socks. I happily put them in the kids' drawers, secure in the knowledge that I was now a "good mother."

Until the very next day when my 5-year-old son burst into tears because all of the socks were matched. Turns out, he LOVED the mismatched socks and the freedom to choose his own foot fashion destiny each day.

What's worse, this constant "shoulding" of myself was causing all of my energy to get stuck, resulting in irritability and physical pain (we'll get to that next week).

And so, my friends, the next time you catch yourself saying "should" – ask yourself why.

Why should you be doing this?

That's the next step to unraveling the Madness of March.