Your should library is what you think you or someone else “should” do or not do. We should all over others by thinking they shouldn’t be so curt, they should say hello in the morning when they pass you, or they should drive better, or be better parents.

Your should library is filled with volumes of deep biases that were built through your experiences.   They are the beliefs that drive your actions that are giving you the results you are getting. Because they are the judgments of what you think should be important in your life your shoulds can also become baseball bats that you take to yourself when you think you didn’t do what you think you should have done. 

We tend to “should all over ourselves”.  We should be healthier, prettier, richer, more successful at work, better mothers, fathers, daugthers, or sons. The voice of our should library can come from our childhood or a strong emotional experience we have had.

We should all over others by thinking they shouldn’t be so curt, they should say hello in the morning when they pass you, or they should drive better, or be better parents.

Our should library is extensive and mostly unconscious.  We justify most of our actions by a should library that we may not have investigated thoroughly to know whether each should is actually still serving us.

It helps to become aware of what’s been placed in your should library from yourself or others and unpack them. Take them out one at a time and assess whether they are things that help you be the person you want to become or are they simply voices in your head from the past that have long since outstayed their welcome.