Quit Shoulding Yourself

It's so easy to get lost in problems at work.

Hang around any workplace long enough, and you will hear complaining. Most of us are guilty of it. I certainly am.?

Negative experiences tend to paint the overall picture in our heads way more often than we like to admit. And that's not just true if you work for someone else.

When you startup a business, it's hard. Whether you take out a loan or have funders to support you through the process, there are great challenges that come your way. There are so many pitfalls and so much advice in every direction.?

• Don't grow too fast.
• Don't miss this opportunity.
• You're idea isn't big or creative enough.
• You're idea is too different, too ambitious, or too naive.?

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate advice from folks who have been there and who have struggled through and have wisdom to offer. But a lot of unsolicited advice comes your way, too. It feels like everyone has expectations about what you should do.

• You should market this way.
• You should hire this person.
• You should try this.
• You shouldn't do that.

In therapy when clients start using the work should, it stands out. It's often an unfair expectation put on you by someone else or one that you gave yourself. Dr. Horney (it's pronounced Horn-Aye, so we will pretend you didn't say it the other way in your head) called it the "Tyranny of the Shoulds." Horney (1950) describes it as striving to be your best self in a manner that is harsh and unendingly perfectionistic.?

Dr. Ellis in a funny reprise called it "musterbating." He described 3 beliefs people have about themselves, others, and the world that have the same effect.

1. "I must do well."
2. "You must treat me well."
3. "The world must be easy."?

Dr. Barbeau, continuing the psychology tradition of fun and interesting labels, called it "shoulding yourself." It's putting pressure on yourself to do or be what you think you are supposed to do or be. These also generally come from messages we receive from others.

I was fortunate enough to have a therapist that brought this to my attention during my first real attempt to get sober. I was a gifted kid with a very high IQ and a very low distress tolerance. "Gifted" is a misnomer by the way. Intelligence is a gift and a curse. It makes learning easy. It also makes turning your brain off for the night nearly impossible some days. It makes relating to people extraordinarily hard because you think differently. It makes math or reading or writing simple. It makes life difficult.

Expectations were both given to me and came from within. I was told by a one person that I better grow up to be a brain surgeon. Then, I failed out of college. I was taught how to do calculus in 5th grade, but no one taught me how to treat myself like someone I cared about.?

People with high IQs are susceptible to many things at a much greater rate than the rest of the population, like anxiety, depression, and addiction. I discovered very quickly at the age of 16 that my brain did turn off when I drank alcohol. No one knew anything bad was happening until I went to college, and things went off the rails very quickly. Expectations haunted me in ways I could only drown out with alcohol. It worked until it didn't.?

Fast forward to today, I'l find myself feeling very similar to those first days of real sobriety. Navigating my way through the dark. Except the adventure I'm currently in is building a business.

The pressure of having a business isn't as simple as having income or profit. No one tells you about the hours you will spend putting together office furniture. Nobody explains that you will pay a very steep price in effort up front before you ever see a reward. No one said, "Hey, just so you know before you get started, you are the CEO, the administrative assistant, the human resources department, the customer service representative, and the janitor."

Regardless of how much money that you yourself produce for the business, you don't bring it home. You have to pay employees. You pay benefits (hopefully). You pay your lease for your space and furniture and office supplies. And guess what, you get paid last, if at all.?

You have to go all in if you want it to last.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, you cannot predict the outcome. It can be overwhelming. Terrifying. Hopeless. If I'm being totally transparent, between caring for all of my clients and ownership and dissertation, I have very authentic and sometimes tearful moments of wanting to quit. I have days when I ask myself why I chose this path. Those are usually followed by resurgences of motivation and dedication.?

Seen through the right kind of eyes, it's an opportunity. I can put that very real and present part of me that relentlessly pursued alcohol to good use, because addiction does actually come with the benefit of having a larger capacity to work and endure stress in pursuit of a goal. It comes with singularity of purpose.?

This is not unique to me at all.?

I think more former addicts should start businesses. I think many of us would be uniquely gifted for it. I hope that I am in fact one of them. But I do think that part of recovery for me was unlearning expectations. Forget everyone's expectations that you make your life like theirs. Don't listen to the voices telling you to get a safe job for the sake of stability. Stop accepting other people's limitations.?

For God's sake, stop shoulding yourself.

Find a mission for yourself and pursue it like you did a substance. See what happens.

References

Barbeau, C. C. (1976). Joy of Marriage. HarperCollins Publishers.

Ellis, A. (1997). Must musturbation and demandingness lead to emotional disorders? Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 34(1), 95–98. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0087779

Horney, K. (1950). The tyranny of the should. Neurosis and Human Growth. The Struggle Towards Self Realisation, 64-85.