Why Your “Should List” Feels Heavy (and 3 Things to Do Instead) Ep 123

Schedule your complimentary 1:1

Having a "should list" feels terrible, and it’s ineffective

I printed my should list and processed it with the Lord. That looked like asking Him questions and seeing what He highlighted to me - if you care to watch, here’s a link to the unedited video of me processing live.

In the process, I saw that more than half of the items contained "more" or "better" and carried condemnation. Yuck!

When I saw how much condemnation there was, I decided to do a Heart Doodle with Jesus, asking, “If I put the way I feel in a picture, what would that look like?” The picture was trying to hit an archery target that was too far away and moving.

God gently spoke, “Undefined is not kind.”

The actions the Lord told me to take out of this process were:

1. Count my steps - every movement in the right direction counts and deserves to be noticed.
2. Evaluate each “should”. Is it a real need or a want? Can you trash it?
3. If it is a need or want, define what it looks like and the steps to complete it.

God doesn’t have a “should list”, only invitations to trust and experience Him.

00:00 Why Should Lists Hurt

00:15 30 Shoulds and Shame

01:59 Heart Doodling Process

03:14 Do More Do Better Trap

04:45 Archery Target Metaphor

06:32 God Has Invitations

07:14 Sorting the 30 Items

09:41 Three Steps Forward

11:30 Define Needs and Wants

13:03 Next Steps and Support

I'd love to connect with you!

• Find community in Healing Generations
•  Learn how God communicates with you in Transformational Quiet Times

Transcript

Heart Doodling And Spotting Patterns

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Having a should list feels terrible. And it's very ineffective for actually getting anything done or anything to change. Do you have a should list? I realized this morning that I did. And when I sat down to put it on paper, I realized it was pretty long. I actually got tired of writing it before I finished it. And when I counted up, I had 30 items on my should list. And I knew that I needed to take the time to sit with the Lord with this list because the shoulds in my head aren't very kind. There's a lot of shame and condemnation in my should list. So I should eat better. I should exercise. I should have more clarity. I should spend more time with God. I should spend more time writing. I should remember what God says. On and on and on. And having a should list feels terrible. And it's very ineffective for actually getting anything done or anything to change. So I took my list to the Lord. And if you have a should list, you can maybe follow through my process, and at the end I'll be sharing the three things that the Lord had me do as a result of processing my should list with Him. As I was realizing as I was thinking through my should list, there's some things on there that I want to do, but in my head it's a should. And like, why is it a should instead of I want to do this or I need to do this?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

And so when I sat down, I printed out my list because I had typed it.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

And I got my watercolor paints out was part of my processing. If you don't know, is a process I call heart doodling with Jesus, where I try and put on paper a picture of how I'm feeling or a picture of what the Lord is saying to me or whatever. And it's just a way to slow down, hear what the Lord is saying, feel what I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

And I went back and forth on do I print it?

The Moving Target Of Better

God’s Invitation Over Condemnation

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Do I rewrite it? Do I all of those with with shoulds? Like I should just print it out because that would be faster. I should rewrite it because then it would be in my sketchbook. I should try and record it so that I could share it. I should not bother with recording because it's not going to be worth sharing. Like all the, like, oh my goodness, just stop. So I did decide to record it with the caveat that I can just throw it away if I don't feel like it's worth sharing. And now I'm recording my podcast to summarize the process that I went through. So when I pulled out my paper and looked at it, what the Lord highlighted to me was how many of my should items said better or more, and how all those better and more's came with shame and a heaviness and a guilt and condemnation because I can always do better. So how do I ever know when I've done better enough? So first he had me highlight all of the better and more words. And when I counted them, it was 16. And then when I went back through later, in one of the other steps I saw, I missed one. So it's actually 17 out of 30 were this ambiguous, you should do more, you should do better. And I was like, oh, that feels really heavy and actually really hurtful. So I did a heart doodle of that do more, do better. And the picture that came to mind as I was thinking on that, of like, what is it? What would be a picture of how this feels as I sit with this huge list of do more and do better? And it coming not in an encouraging, like, I believe in you and you're gonna do better, and you're gonna do more and go farther, but in this condemning, like, you're not enough and you like do more, do better already. Um, the picture that came to mind was me being very, very small and a long way away from an archery target. And so all of my arrows are falling way short of the target. And then I realized that also the target moves. So even if I do occasionally get close to it, it's not good enough because the target might not be there when the arrow gets there, because it just moves, because better and more is not defined. So the target is not defined. So I actually can never hit it. And that was one of the things the Lord told me as I was processing and journaling about how I felt and the things that I was feeling is that undefined is not kind. So whether we're doing that to others or whether we're doing that to ourselves, of just leaving it undefined, of I need to do better. Okay, what does that look like? How are you gonna know that you've done better? And that's probably why people like SMART goals so much of making it whatever all the acronyms are, you know, specific and measurable and time-bound and all of those things. That's never worked for me. But I can definitely see the benefit in defining it so that I can see if I've actually hit a target instead of just always shooting at it and always missing because I'm not 100% sure what I'm shooting at. So after I had done that heart doodle, well, I guess I'll share what the Lord said to me after I sat with those feelings and gods, he said, You are enough for me. I chose to create you, die as you, and make you my child. I don't have a should list for you. I only have invitations for you to trust and experience me. So freedom in that. God doesn't have a should list for me, he doesn't have a should list for you either. He has an invitation into relationship and experiencing him. And when I finished the heartdoodle, I came back to the should list and was like, okay, now what do I do? Like it was good for me to see the emotional mental load I was carrying. And like I debated on making a picture of that of somehow, like in my picture, I probably should have a huge backpack on. Because it's just so heavy. And so it's like, okay, I see that. I can put that down of the carrying this weight of do more and do better. I can put that down and give it to Jesus because he did more, he did better.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

So the pressure is off of me. I was like, now what do I do?

Three Practices For Real Change

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I still have a list of 30 things that I feel like are important, they matter to me. And so I felt like the Lord told me to pick three things. And looking at the list was overwhelming, so I went through with colors and grouped things together in what ended up being five categories, and I didn't start out with a plan of five categories. I just could see there was multiple items that had to do with eating. So I made that a category, which I can see now looking at it, I could have lumped into health because I did kind of physical movement and stuff like that as a health category. So I could have put eating in with that and just had four categories, but it doesn't matter because the idea was just like trying to find a way to reduce it down and to sort through it so that I could pick three things. And I ended up with a the eating category, a business category, a health category, a relationship category, and then just like me personally, my own thinking and behavior towards myself and with the Lord. But I wasn't like none of the the list of 30. There wasn't three things that jumped out at me, like these are the three things, which is what I was expecting. And that's part of why I love processing things with the Lord, is because he's free to do things outside of what I expect. And he makes things so much simpler than I do. So he reminded me of a time earlier this week where I was doing some heart doodling, and he told me to count my steps on the journey towards where he is taking me. To count the steps along the way. It doesn't just count when I finally get there. The steps along the way count too. And being more mindful of counting my steps is why I even noticed the shoulds this morning and made the should list. So being more aware of counting the steps along the way towards better, instead of I've missed the mark because I'm not at better yet, even though I didn't know what better is. So that was the first thing he told me to do is to count my steps. And then I came back to the list again of like, okay, now I have one thing to do, but now I need two more. You said three things. So I am still looking through the list of 30, expecting one of them to jump out at me as like, this is the thing, or the two things to round out the three.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And they're not showing up. But what does show up is that there's things on the list that really all of them are things that I want to do.

Links To Walk It Out

SPEAKER_00 11:24

And some of them are probably things that I need to do, but not in this undefined way, because like he said, undefined is not kind of not being kind to myself if I have a list of 30 ambiguous ideas that I should be doing. So the thing that he said to do was rather than coming back to this list and trying to pick the things from this list, is that as I'm going through my day of the things that I actually know I need to do, if there's shoulds that come up, and even if there's needs and wants that come up, to make sure I'm looking at the shoulds and see if it's a need to do or a want to do, or if I can just trash it because it's just a should. And then if it is a need or a want, the third thing to do, so I'm counting my steps, I'm evaluating the shoulds. And if it's a need or a want, then I need to define it. What will it look like to do the thing that I need to do or to do the thing that I want to do? And what are the steps in that so that I can count my steps and be like, see, you're moving in the right direction. You're keeping your commitment to yourself and to the Lord. Whether that's instead of I need to make a meal plan, saying, I'm going to make a meal plan for the dinners for this week, then I can count each step of each dinner that gets planned. And when the whole week is planned, I can say, I did it, I'm done. I accomplished that thing that I said I needed to do or wanted to do. If you recognize that you have a should list, or maybe an I can't list, or something like that, I encourage you to make the list and sit with the Lord to see what he shows you and what he's saying to do with it. And if you want to like watch how I processed my list in real time, I did record it. And I will include a link to that in the description. If you would like me to walk alongside you as you evaluate your should list or other things that I share about on the podcast, you can schedule a complimentary call with me. The link for that is in the description as well. And if you want a place to record counting your steps and have people celebrate you along the way as you count your steps, I'm currently doing that in the Healing Generations community. The Lord is clearly telling me I need to be counting my steps. And so I'm doing that in the group just as an accountability. And you are welcome to join us. The community is free.