Do You Like Being Told What to Do? Why “shoulds” keep you stuck — and what helps instead
Nobody likes being told what to do.
Even when the advice is good. Even when we privately agree with it. Something about hearing you should from someone else lands as criticism — and tends to make us more resistant, not less.
But here’s the thing most people don’t notice: we do exactly the same thing to ourselves. Constantly.
I should exercise more. I should be more organised. I should be further along by now.
And then we wonder why we’re not doing those things — and feel guilty and ashamed on top of it.
Why “should” doesn’t work as motivation
Guilt and shame are genuinely poor motivators. They can create short bursts of action driven by discomfort — but they don’t tend to create lasting change. Mostly they just create a low-level background noise of not-good-enough that follows you around.
The problem with “should” is that it positions the action as an obligation — something external to you, something you’re failing to comply with — rather than something you actually want. And it’s very hard to sustainably do things you feel coerced into, even when you’re the one doing the coercing.
There’s also another layer worth noticing: not every “should” is actually yours.
Some of them came from a parent’s voice. A cultural expectation. A partner’s preference. A standard you absorbed somewhere along the way without ever consciously choosing it. When you actually look at them, some “shoulds” turn out to be things you don’t even want — you just want to want them, or feel like you’re supposed to.
A different kind of question
One small shift that can open things up considerably is replacing “I should” with “I would like to.”
It sounds simple. It’s surprisingly not.
I should be more organised → I would like to be more organised
Now check: is that actually true? Do you genuinely want that — or is it something someone else wants for you, or something you feel you ought to want?
If it is genuinely something you want, the follow-up question becomes: what would be different if I had it? What would you gain? What might you lose? Because sometimes the thing getting in the way of change isn’t laziness or lack of discipline — it’s that part of you can see a cost to changing that hasn’t been acknowledged yet.
A process worth trying
If you want to work with this more directly:
1. Track your shoulds
Spend a few days just noticing — without trying to change anything — how often “should” shows up in your internal dialogue. Write them down if that’s useful.
2. Pick one to examine
Choose a should that’s been around for a while. Something that keeps coming up and going nowhere.
3. Reword it
Change it to “I would like to…” and notice how it feels. Does it ring true? Does it feel flat? Does it feel like relief?
4. Check whose voice it is
Is this genuinely something you want — or something you think you should want? There’s no wrong answer. But knowing the difference matters.
5. Look at the barriers honestly
If it is something you want, what’s actually getting in the way? Not the surface answer — the real one. Sometimes the barrier is practical. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s that changing this thing would require changing something else you’re not ready to change yet.
6. Notice what you’re choosing
Ultimately, not doing something is also a choice — made for reasons that may be worth understanding. Getting curious about those reasons is usually more useful than adding another layer of shame about them.
From should to choice
The shift this process is trying to create is from I’m failing to comply with an obligation to I’m making choices, and I can get clearer about what I actually want and what’s getting in the way.
That shift doesn’t make change automatic. But it tends to make it more honest — and more possible.
Because change that comes from genuine wanting, with a clear-eyed view of what it costs and what it offers, tends to stick in a way that guilt-driven effort rarely does.
If you notice that “shoulds” — your own or other people’s — play a significant role in how you relate to yourself or others, that’s often worth exploring. It can connect to deeper patterns around self-criticism, anxiety, and how you learned to motivate yourself. Individual counselling or anxiety counselling can be a useful space for that kind of work.
