Should-ing on Yourself Won't Motivate You

Discover what to do instead

Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, toddler mom, and coach who writes Humans Leading to help overwhelmed professionals live less stressed, more satisfying lives. If the full post doesn’t show up in your e-mail, come over to the webpage or Substack App to see the whole thing. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

As I’ve written about previously, my father unexpectedly got sick in December and died quickly. It left a gaping hole in my life that I have been slowly crawling out of. I am so grateful to have had this place to come and write about it and a wonderful community cheering me on. This week, I’m prioritizing time with family as we celebrate my dad’s life, so I’m taking a break from posting a new piece. I hope you enjoy this post from the archives that reminds all of us not to “should” on ourselves when we feel that we aren’t doing the “right” thing or feel that we could be doing something “better.”

I think we can all use this reminder from time to time. See you next week for my Gifts of Imperfection wrap-up post! It’s packed full of takeaways and links to dig further into the work.

This post was originally published August 23rd, 2024

Recently, I found myself with a three-hour break between meetings during a work-from-home day.

Thanks to an overnight shift two nights prior, I was in what we in medicine like to call a “post-post-call” fog, and I hadn’t noticed the break earlier in the day.

When it arrived, I found myself thinking about what to do to make the “best use” of this time.

In other words, I immediately started should-ing on myself.

Even if you’ve never used this term, you know what it looks like (and you’ve likely done it to yourself):

• I should work out.

• I should clean the house.

• I should get ahead on that upcoming project.

• I should…

• You get the point.

As these thoughts swirled around in my head, I started to feel pretty judgmental about myself.

“Why can’t I be more productive?” I found myself thinking.

And then I took a breath and remembered:

• I had missed nearly an entire night of sleep as a result of working overnight two nights prior.

• I didn’t sleep well last night.

• I did hours of back-to-back meetings and coaching sessions that morning.

I was tired, and my brain was mush.

I took a nap.

We often should on ourselves when what we need is love.

This is today’s reminder: 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟.

You know when you’re doing it.

Should-ing on yourself is when your brain reminds you of the list of things that you “need” to do in order to be a “good” worker/parent/partner/person/etc.

Even if this kind of self-talk works to motivate you for a period of time, at some point it stops working, and it starts being harmful. It starts damaging you. And it makes more stress through the self-judgement that it creates.

Ultimately, should-ing on yourself is de-motivating and inhibits your ability to make progress.

The next time you find yourself doing this, try this instead:

✨take a breath

✨think about what action you 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 to do in that moment because you want to do it (and possibly, as in my case, because your body actually needs you to do it)

✨do the thing from a place of choice

Notice how different it feels.

How do you “should” on yourself? I’d love to hear in the comments.