Stop shoulding all over yourself
I had a challenging conversation with my mom recently, and I’d like to share it with you today to make a point.
(Just so you know, I’m not talking about my mom behind her back! She’s already read a draft of this, provided feedback :-) and she’s probably reading this email right now. Hi, mom! Thanks for letting me share our chat!)
My mom, Lois, is an incredible human who taught special education her whole life, was knee-deep in all of my and my sister’s sports activities growing up, was the de-facto leader of the parent-teacher org at our school as she defended tooth and nail her kids’ education, and is all-around the sweetest and most well-intentioned person I know. When she was 67 (eight years ago) she broke her hip while traveling across the U.S. After her recovery, it was clear that she needed to prioritize her fitness — namely strength training, balance, and cardio — in order to stay healthy, capable, and independent.
Yet it wasn’t something she chose to jump on. (And to her credit, she’s not necessarily listening to the latest research from longevity experts like Peter Attia when it comes to the benefits of strength and cardio!) She does go to Pilates twice a week, which has a lot of benefits, and rides her bike often enough. But, she has always been, self-admittedly, not someone who pushes herself hard when she’s working out. For years I’ve gently encouraged her to look for a personal trainer to help push her and her response wasn’t “no”... but it wasn’t a “yes, let’s do it/I’ll do it” either.
It was more like “yeah, I should do that.” Which is almost always a no in disguise for most people.
I’m confident my mom isn’t like most people, that she understands a bit more about the urgency and is taking it all to heart, and action because the stats on breaking your hip as you age aren’t good:
One in three adults aged 50 and over dies within 12 months of suffering a hip fracture.
Older adults have a 5-8x higher risk of dying within the first three months of a hip fracture compared to those without a hip fracture.
The increased risk of death remains for almost 10 years after the fracture occurs.
The data doesn’t improve the older you get, as you can imagine.
I want my mom to realize that it’s not too late to continue to fortify her health. But it is urgent.
I don’t want her to fall again and hurt herself. I want her to stay strong, healthy, and independent. I want her to be a part of our lives for years to come. I want her to see her grandkids grow up.
I’m hoping I’ve been able to educate and inspire her to treat her fitness not like another “should” but something more important. I know she’s on board with figuring out how to make it all work for her - and that’s exciting.
I’m having these conversations with her all the while respecting that she doesn’t need to follow in the footsteps of a Joan MacDonald, or anything!
And this is my point:
If there is something important that you’ve been telling yourself you “should” do, maybe it’s time to stop “shoulding” and start acting on it.
And, if you want some further inspiration to do this, look no further than our good old friend Tony Robbins who I will give full credit to the subject line of this piece:
Tony’s point is simple:
If we want to get something done, our ‘should’ has to become a ‘must’.
When we keep saying “I really should get to that, we’re just shoulding all over ourselves.”
If something is truly a must, we will get it done. But if we call it a ‘should’, we get nowhere.
I agree with Tony’s approach because I’ve seen it for myself. Actually, I seek to live it.
It was my Olympic training and success.
It was the birth and growth of Classroom Champions.
It was multiple projects on the USOPC’s Board of Directors.
It was digging myself out of depression.
And when I am not getting things done. When I feel like I’m a failure or I objectively am failing, it’s almost always because I’m not moving it from a should to a must.
But my Olympic mission continues to be the best use case of should to must. Imagine working towards a project that is 3-4 years off. How would you treat each day when you are 1,460 days or 1,095 days away from that goal? I mean, we see how we and or our coworkers treat a project that is a few months away, let alone that far down the road.
For my teammates and I, the answer is that we treated every single day of our training period with the same urgency. We treated it as we MUST warm up properly today, work as hard as we can today, eat and rest properly today because if we didn’t, someone else was. Whether we were hundreds of days out, or mere days out, it didn’t matter. Every single second counted.
Not every athlete saw it that way. And the ones who didn’t… didn’t last.
So the guidance on this is simple, on the surface: The quickest and most sustainable way a should becomes a must is when we add urgency to our equation.
Of course, most of us aren’t working around the clock towards a clearly defined, singular goal. Left to our own devices, it’s incredibly easy to let the “I’ll get to that one day” or “I really ought to get around to that” stuff stack up.
So, here’s my ask of you: if you’re falling prey to that mistake, stop shoulding on yourself.
Decide what really matters to you. Then, don’t wait for life to tell you that it’s urgent through some kind of sign, emergency, or wake-up call. Decide that it’s urgent now. It’s our decision to make and no one will make it for us. The more you practice that mentality, the easier it becomes and the more effective it/you will be.
Tell yourself.
Trick yourself.
Tell others to make it real.
Set a timeline for it.
Look past the goal and realize what happens if you don’t.
Remind yourself that things can change tomorrow.
Remind yourself that there are more factors out of your control than in your control, so we best get to work on what’s within our control as soon as we can.
Don’t settle with your own should - choose to make it a must.
- Steve
(I know you will, Mom, and I’m excited to see it!)
