I will be the first to admit that I’m hard on myself and I’m my biggest critic. Over time I’ve always set a very high standard for myself, and that in turn has flowed out to the people around me.
Several months back however I was speaking with someone about the language and words that we use and how they create or define our state of mind. (Yes it was an in-depth philosophical conversation, which apparently are my favourite.)
As we were talking we came up with an interesting idea that I had to try. We wrote down all the internal rules that we created for our shelf, the silly the rule sound the closer we believed we were coming to the defining rules that we operate by.
If you would like to do this yourself, get a piece of paper and start writing down your rules. They should start with these words; I should….
As I said, the silly it sounds the closer it is to truth. Don’t think just write.
For example, some of mine were:
I should be married
I should be in a better job
I should be in a relationship
I should have more friends
Once we had those rules we went through each one looking for why that rule existed and whether it had been a conscious or unconscious decision. So we wrote down the why, for each rule.
Using the rules above:
I should be married, because I’m in my 30’s
I should be in a better job, because I’ve been working for 13 years
I should be in a relationship, because apparently I’m amazing and once again I’m in my 30’s
I should have more friends, because I’m nice and helpful
As you can see, when you look over the reasons they seem to be a little silly. From there we changed the word ‘should’ to ‘would like to’.
Using the rules above:
I would like to be married, because I’m in my 30’s
I would like to be in a better job, because I’ve been working for 13 years
I would like to be in a relationship, because apparently I’m amazing and once again I’m in my 30’s
I would like to have more friends, because I’m nice and helpful
As you read over them now, they have lost that harshness or weight and are now more of this could be good kind of feeling, but if I don’t have it; that’s ok. As you read over it as well, the reasons no longer seem to apply and so we therefore need to rethink our why’s.
Using the rules above:
I would like to be married, because I would like to have someone to share my experiences with
I would like to be in a better job, because I would like to be moving forward with my career
I would like to be in a relationship, because I would like to share what I have to offer with someone special
I would like to have more friends, because there a times when I’m lonely and I enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories
Now using these rules you are able to give yourself direction and understand why you might want something. Also reading over them you are filled with hope rather then dread at having to be or achieve something. I now read over my rules once or twice a week, and it helps me remember that there are things that I would like in life; but that doesn’t mean that it has to happen now or that it has to happen.
As a note as well, you can still have I should rules on your list. These are the core defining rules that make us who we are. For instance, one rule that is on my list as a should; I should treat everyone fairly and give them the benefit of the doubt because that is the right thing to do. I would also hope that people are doing that for me as well.
As always we need to remember to be kind to ourselves, no one benefits if we beat ourselves up. This is something I too need to remember. I hope that you find this helpful.