I will not ‘should’ on myself today

The past few years have been incredibly tough, on businesses, on careers, on families, on individuals and on society as a whole. There was no script on how to manage a Global Pandemic, or lock-downs or the massive decision to vax or not to vax.

I’d had a conversation with a neighbour who worked for one of the big banks. At the start of Covid she and all the women in the bank were told to re-apply for a reduced number of jobs. The men’s jobs were safe! My neighbour was incredibly angry about the ultimatum, but needed the job so applied and was kept on. However, she saw several of her older workmates dumped from their jobs, knowing they would probably never get another job because of their age.

These situations were enacted all over the world as Covid ran rampant. We were ALL casualties of something that was way beyond our control and as a result we all felt powerless, fearful and vulnerable.

My neighbour’s situation caused me to write my first ‘woman’s’ book: ‘Women Behaving Courageously: how gutsy women, young and old are transforming the world’ which led to running workshops for women (young and old) as they struggled with all manner of challenges whilst trying to hold their families together. ?

I’ve worked for over 30 years in the corporate world as an HR Consultant, working mostly with males, so this venture into working with women was a totally new experience for me. What blew me away as I ran the workshops were the types of women who showed up. These were women, who on the surface were successful; women who ran their own businesses and had survived the lockdowns and uncertainty. Women who had managed to hold onto their careers in senior roles, yet here they were attending a workshop for women, and when I asked what they wanted from the sessions they told me they wanted help with:

·????????Feelings of low self-worth

·????????Guilt

·????????Exhaustion

And then the word ‘should’ entered our discussions:

·????????I should be able to deal with looking after my family whilst trying to keep my business afloat

·????????I should be more supportive of my partner/children/family as they are going through their own fears

·????????I should be able to keep all these balls in the air and not feel exhausted all the time.

·????????I should be stronger than this

The problem with ‘should’ing’ on ourselves is that it just pours more guilt on top of our feelings of self-worth and takes us directly to exhaustion. We’re only human: there are only so many hours in a day and it is absolutely OK to say, I can’t do all this right now.

Since then, I’ve had men asking if I could run sessions for them for the exact same challenges. So what’s going on?

I’m convinced that 3 years of fighting a pandemic has left ALL of us feeling exhausted, fearful and stressed. I will run sessions next year for men because I know how hard it is for strong women to ask for help, and that’s magnified 100 fold for men.?

So the next time you hear yourself saying ‘I should be able to do this’, take a breath, sit quietly somewhere and give yourself a break. Pace yourself, spread the load, ask for help, say NO now and again when people ask you to take on more and more. Offer alternatives ‘I can’t do that right now, but I could do it for you next week’.

We’ve heard a lot about being ‘kind’ to shop assistant and nursing staff, and during these uncertain times, we absolutely need to be kind to others, so how about we start being kind to ourselves?

And as always, a final thought:

‘The cause of our despair is the sentences at the back of our minds, all of which contain the word ‘should’. It shouldn’t have been… I shouldn’t have… It should be… These are the sentences that we need to avoid. We shouldn’t use ‘should’ too much.’

―?Abhaidev,?The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

?NB: In the deep recesses of my mind, I have a feeling that the phrase ‘I will not should on myself today’ was the very first ever affirmation!

Ann Andrews, CSP. Author, speaker, profiler, Life Member PSANZ

Author of:

Did I Really Employ You?

Lessons in leadership: 50 ways to avoid falling into the ‘Trump’ trap

Leaders Behaving Badly: What happens when ordinary people show up, stand up and speak up

My Dear Franchisees

Women Behaving Courageously: How gutsy women, young and old, are transforming the world

NEW RELEASE: Women Behaving Courageously: The Self-Help Workbook

www.annandrews.co.nz