Everything You “Should” Be Doing Is Actually Optional

Every day, you have an interior monologue happening as you make small and big choices: 

I should have a smoothie for breakfast. 

I should get up and go to the gym. 

I shouldn’t spend my money on that. 

I should put on deodorant before I go to the party. 

I shouldn’t go to bed until I finish this project. 

I should be less awkward the next time we hang out. 

The word “should” (and its counterpart, “shouldn’t”) can show up a lot in our psyche, and sometimes, it can cause us to fall into a thinking trap that ramps up our anxiety and shame without us even noticing it. 

Even reading over those sentences above, it’s tricky to know which of them might be positive and motivational and which ones might be subtly harmful to the psyche. 

With time and practice, you can start to identify your own problematic should statements, and flip the script to avoid the guilt and frustration they can bring. 

Why are should statements so common?

Should statements feel completely natural because they’re everywhere in our culture. From childhood, we’re surrounded by messages about what we “should” be doing, thinking, or feeling. Parents, teachers, social media, and even well-meaning friends constantly offer opinions about the “right” way to live.

These external voices start as guidance from people who care about us. A parent says “you should brush your teeth” to help you develop good hygiene habits. A teacher suggests “you should study harder” to help you succeed academically.

As children, we depend on the adults in our lives to give us guidance, and it is natural to trust them to have our best interests in mind.

Over time, your brain starts storing these messages and repeating them back to you. The voices that once came from outside gradually become your own internal dialogue. You don’t need your mom to tell you to clean your room anymore because her voice has become part of your own thinking.

Eventually, your brain learns to create new should statements on its own, using the same tone and structure it learned from others. This is often where we start to run into trouble. 

When should statements become problematic

Should statements become problematic when they shift from helpful guidance to guilt-inducing demands. They create an impossible standard where you’re constantly falling short of some imaginary ideal. Instead of motivating you toward positive action, they generate shame about not being “enough.” 

This can happen for any number of reasons. It’s likely that some of the external messages you received when you were younger were problematic themselves. 

For example, perhaps a parent frequently told you that showing your emotions was a sign of weakness. As you grow older, you may find that you have thoughts like, “I shouldn’t be so upset” or “I should be able to handle this myself.” In this context, these shaming should statements could prevent you from finding healthy ways to express emotions. 

Other times, the message you internalized may have been a good one at the start, but in the process of taking it on and reinterpreting it, your brain made it into something that is working against you. 

For instance, a teacher at school, impressed by your musical talent, tells you, “If you keep practicing, you’ll be a famous guitarist one day.” They were only giving you a compliment and trying to encourage you, but somehow that message, along with others you received, morphed into, “If I don’t practice as hard as I can, I’ll be a failure.” 

The really tricky thing is that should statements disguise themselves as motivation. Your brain tricks you into thinking that beating yourself up will somehow make you more productive or successful. Maybe, in the short-term, it does. But the constant pressure often leads to procrastination, anxiety, and decision paralysis in the long-run. 

How to catch and filter out harmful should statements

The first step is simply noticing how often the word “should” appears in your internal dialogue. It might surprise you how often it comes up!  

Use specific activities to recognize should statements

Try setting a phone reminder to check in with your thoughts a few times throughout the day. What should statements have been running through your mind since your last check-in?

Daily journaling, or any kind of thoughtful meditation and mindfulness, can also help you spot patterns. Write down the should statements that came up during your day, along with how they made you feel. You’ll start noticing which situations or emotions trigger the most self-critical thoughts.

Check your emotional response

Not all should statements are harmful. “I should wear a seatbelt” and “I should show up on time for my job” are practical guidelines that help you stay safe, grow, and maintain relationships. The problematic ones usually involve impossible standards, constant self-criticism, or assumptions about what others expect from you.

Pay attention to the emotional aftermath of your should statements. Helpful ones feel like gentle reminders or practical planning. Harmful ones leave you feeling guilty, anxious, or like you’re never doing enough. If a should statement makes you feel worse about yourself, even while motivating you to take positive action, it’s probably working against you on some level.

Look for should statements in different areas of your life

Should statements show up everywhere, but they tend to cluster around certain themes that are particularly relevant during college years. These often come from comparing yourself to others or trying to meet expectations about what your life “should” look like at this stage.

➡️ Academic and career pressure: These should statements often stem from family expectations, peer comparisons, or societal pressure about success and achievement.

• “I should have chosen a different major“
• “I should be getting better grades”
• “I should know what I want to do with my life by now”

➡️ Social relationships: We live in a comparison culture, where social media means you’re constantly seeing curated versions of other people’s social lives and relationships, and using it as a metric for your own life.

• “I should be more outgoing”
• “I should have more friends“
• “I should text them back immediately”

➡️ Self-care and productivity: These sound positive on the surface, but they often set up all-or-nothing thinking that leads to giving up entirely when you can’t maintain perfection.

• “I should work out every day”
• “I should eat healthier”
• “I should be more organized”

5 ways to reframe unhelpful should statements

Once you’ve identified the should statements that are working against you, the next step is actively reframing them into something more helpful. 

The techniques below take practice and repetition. At first, reframing will feel forced or even like you’re lying to yourself. That’s normal and temporary. You’ve been reinforcing certain thought patterns for years, so it takes time to build new neural pathways.

1. Ask “according to who?”

This simple question is one of the most powerful tools for dismantling should statements. When you catch yourself thinking “I should be more social” or “I should have my career figured out,” pause and ask where that expectation came from.

Often, you’ll discover that your “shoulds” are actually other people’s voices that you’ve internalized. Maybe your extroverted roommate thinks everyone should love parties, or your parents believe you should have a five-year plan mapped out. These aren’t universal truths—they’re opinions that may not align with your actual values or circumstances.

Sometimes the source is more abstract, like social media or cultural messages about what people your age “should” be doing (Use this skin product! Follow this workout routine! Buy these jeans!). Recognizing that these are external pressures, not your own authentic desires, helps you decide whether the expectation is actually worth pursuing.

The goal isn’t to reject all outside input, but to distinguish between helpful guidance and arbitrary rules that don’t serve you. Once you identify the source, you can choose whether to keep the expectation or let it go.

2. Replace “should” with “want” or “choose”

This linguistic swap changes the entire energy of a statement. “I should go to the gym” carries guilt and obligation, while “I want to go to the gym because it makes me feel energized” connects you to your actual motivation.

The word “choose” is equally powerful because it emphasizes your agency. “I choose to study tonight because I want to feel prepared for my exam” feels completely different from “I should study tonight.” One acknowledges your autonomy, while the other treats you like you’re following orders.

Sometimes you’ll discover that when you try to reframe a should statement, you can’t find a genuine “want” underneath it. That’s valuable information—it might mean the expectation isn’t actually important to you, or that you need to dig deeper to find your real motivation.

If you genuinely can’t find a “want” or “choose” version that feels authentic, consider whether this is something you actually need to do at all. Not every should statement deserves to become action.

3. Question the timeline and standards

Many should statements come with impossible timelines or perfectionist standards. “I should have my life together by now” assumes there’s a specific age when everyone magically figures everything out. “I should never procrastinate” sets up a standard that no human can meet consistently.

Challenge these assumptions by asking more realistic questions. What does “having your life together” actually mean? Who decided that 20-year-olds should have everything figured out? What would “good enough” look like instead of perfect?

Often, you can keep the general intention while adjusting the expectations to something more reasonable. “I want to make progress on figuring out my career path” feels much more manageable than “I should know exactly what I want to do with my life.”

This approach helps you maintain motivation while removing the crushing pressure that makes should statements so destructive. Progress, not perfection, becomes the goal.

4. Focus on your actual values and priorities

Should statements often conflict with what you actually care about. You might tell yourself “I should go to that networking event” when you’re exhausted and would rather spend the evening recharging. Learning to honor your real needs and values is crucial for breaking free from should-based thinking.

Start by identifying what matters most to you right now. Maybe academic success is genuinely important, but social popularity isn’t. Maybe creativity fulfills you more than conventional career advancement. When your actions align with your actual values, you’ll need fewer should statements to motivate yourself.

This process requires honest self-reflection about what you want your life to look like, separate from what others think it should look like. It’s okay if your priorities are different from your friends, family, or society’s expectations, but it takes courage and patience to deviate from the paths you feel like you should be on.

When a should statement conflicts with your values, you have permission to let it go. “I should be more ambitious about my career” might not apply if you value work-life balance over rapid advancement. Trust your own judgment about what serves your life.

5. Practice self-compassion instead of self-criticism

The harshest should statements usually involve self-criticism. “I should be less anxious,” “I should be more confident,” or “I should stop making mistakes” treat normal human experiences like personal failures.

Self-compassion offers a completely different approach. Instead of criticizing yourself for being anxious, you might think “I’m feeling anxious right now, and that’s understandable given the stress I’m under. How can I take care of myself in this moment?”

Breaking down should statements takes time—and the end result is usually a more complex but complete thought. That’s a good thing! Give yourself the time needed to puzzle it out. 

This shift moves you from judgment to problem-solving. Rather than wasting energy on self-criticism, you can focus on what would actually help the situation. 

Start looking for the should statements running through your mind every day, and you’ll be surprised at how much influence this one little word has over your mood and mental health. 

It will take time to retrain your brain to let go of should statements that formed long ago, but by recognizing these thoughts, parsing out which ones are problematic, and finding compassionate ways to reframe them, you’ll soon live life without the word “should” perched on your shoulder.