Why it's important to eliminate 'should' from your vocabulary

The word ‘should' is the most damaging word in the English language. Here's why (and why you need to stop using it).

Many people go through life doing what they think they ‘should’, ‘must’ or ‘have’ to do, as opposed to what they want to do.

How many times have you said ‘I should go to the gym’ or ‘I have to go out with my friends’?

This is because you feel that what you want to do is a pipe dream, unattainable or simply not possible. As a result, you may live a life of simply going through the motions and feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

Society and education can condition us to think we ‘should’ do certain things and then we feel bad when we don’t.

What’s the point in continually using a word that makes you feel bad about yourself?

Family pressure can limit our actions; for example, many people are trying to fulfil their parent’s goals and not their own. They are setting themselves up for failure by doing this - they are trying to please other people - not themselves.

Tune into your ‘shoulds’. When you say things like ‘I should go to the gym’, think about how this makes you feel. Do you feel like a failure or lazy?

From a Law of Attraction perspective, all these inadequate feelings weigh heavily on you, and in turn, you emanate this frequency out to the Universe. You will then attract more of this negativity back to yourself, which will continue to make you feel lazy and a failure. It’s a vicious circle.

Try and catch yourself using the word in all circumstances

People are using the word should left, right and centre. For example, to their colleagues, workers and themselves. Lots of us are trapped in a ‘should’ cycle, and constantly using the word should misaligns us from what lights us up in life.

When we are ‘lit up’ we are naturally on the path to prosperity, success and abundance.

If you want to raise your vibration and attract more of what you ‘want’ into your life, whether that’s love, a new job, money or anything else, it’s important to look at your vocabulary.

Start finding alternative words for these ‘deadly’ words (should, must, have to and so on).

I am a firm advocate of this practice, popularised by Louise Hay. When you change your ‘should’ into a ‘could’, it gives you options and choices.

The word ‘should’, on the other hand, makes you feel like you’re bad, wrong and a failure - it’s an incredibly limiting word. When you say you ‘should’ do something, it implies that you were, are or are going to get something wrong!

Going back to the gym analogy if you replaced ‘should’ with ‘could’, your statement would be “I could go to the gym if I really wanted to.

You can then ask yourself why you’re not going, and get to the real issue of what’s going on, as opposed to feeling bad or wrong because you didn’t do what you said you ‘should’!

Exploring the real reason behind an action or decision (or lack of), means that you avoid corroding your self-confidence in the process.

By removing the ‘should’, you allow yourself to explore your real motivations. It could be that you are not going to the gym because you’re tired or simply don’t like this form of exercise!

If you continue to tell yourself you ‘should’ do something you don’t really want to, you will end up riddled with resentment and resistance. And from a Law of Attraction perspective, you will just continue to attract more resentment and resistance into your life.

Allowing more room for self-care and self-love in your life will enable you to explore what it is you do want for yourself, and what you actually like doing.

To break the habit, try the ‘should’ exercise:

Write a list of five things you think you should do. Then, reframe the sentence.

For example, ‘I should go to the gym’ becomes ‘I could go to the gym’.

Explore what comes up next and how you feel? Is this something you really want to do? If not, why not? What would you prefer to be doing instead? Remember, where there’s a choice, there’s freedom.

The word ‘should’ removes the choice, whereas the word ‘could’ allows you to explore the real reason for you not taking action.

‘Could’ opens up the opportunity for you to be true to yourself, become more confident and live a life that fulfils you.

Try this exercise for yourself. Write out your list and then reframe everything on the list. Then decide which of the things you actually want to do - and go do them!

Originally published in the Daily Express, 8/03/22