Change Your Shoulds and Coulds

Are you failing to listen to the should and the could's in your life? By transforming our shoulds into "do's" and "will"s we may accomplish many things.  However, sometimes our should and coulds are things we might want to avoid doing entirely.

1. Take a look at your shoulds and coulds.

Spend some time over the next few days listening to your inner talk and your external communications. Take note of the number of times you express or think the word "Should" or "Could". If you have a high frequency of shoulds or coulds, (Perhaps 5+ a day) you may want to spend some "thinking, development and planning" time around them.


2. Delve into the shoulds and coulds.

After you have listened to yourself over the last few days, you may find some frequent shoulds and coulds. Take time to jot them down in sentence form.

I should get more sleep at night
I wish I could keep my desk clear
We could buy a new car


3. Analyze your should and could's for future work and change.

Let's say you want to get more sleep. How can you go about making it come to fruition? By brainstorming you may come to some possilble solutions.

For example:  

I should get more sleep -  To get more sleep, go to bed earlier or stay in bed longer. The should becomes a will when you decide to go to sleep earlier or set your alarm for a later morning wake up.

We could buy a new car - Deciding to buy a new or different car, is a process and project. You may choose to get a new car when your current car reaches a certain mileage, or if maintenance fees exceed the cost of a monthly payment. Your new car might be more advantageous when you have to start driving to your new company's office (which is further away) to keep fuel costs down. A new car might make more sense after you have paid off other debts or saved a certain dollar amount. The could becomes more of a strategy and plan development when you look at the when and why components.


4. Transform your should and could's to wills, when's, why's or later decisions. If you formalize and bring these shoulds and coulds  to the next phase you will allow more space for things to happen.

5. Erase your negative should and could's from your mental and verbal vocabulary.  Sometimes we have stuck should and could's which can not be easily transformed into action or do not warrant further thought about.

For Example:

I should have said  ..... instead of ......
I could have read the directions three times and caught my mistake (after improperly assembling a complex piece of furniture)


Spend some time working on your should and could's and you will likely transform your life.

This is a best of post from 2009

What Can You Change?

Let's think about change. What can you change? Here is an A - Z  list. Some of these I'll explore in subsequent posts.

Change your Attitude
Change your Behavior
Change your Communication Style
Change your Delegation Techniques
Change your Environment
Change your Finances
Change your Focus
Change your Goals
Change your Habits
Change your I's into We's
Change your Judgments
Change your Karma
Change your Listening Patterns
Change your Mission
Change your Mindset
Change your Messages
Change your No's intoYes's
Change your Outlook
Change your Patterns
Change your Perspective
Change your Position
Change your Productivity
Change your Questions
Change your Relationships
Change your Routines
Change your Should and Coulds
Change your State of Mind
Change your Strengths
Change your Thinking
Change your Time Management Practices
Change your Understanding
Change your Viewpoint
Change your Walls into Windows
Change your eXcitement Level
Change your Zen



You might also enjoy reading these past posts on change.

Listen to Grow
Winds of Change
Time to Prune
Making Headway Towards Where We Want To Go