Do you feel good when you are constantly being told that you are wrong? Are you motivated and inspired to create great things when you feel bad about yourself? If you are like most people, I’d say that your answer to both questions is a solid “NO”.

When you tell yourself that you should do this or you should do that, you are in essence telling yourself that you are wrong; you are wrong for not doing what you say you should be doing!

When it comes to weight loss and fitness, how often do you tell yourself that you should do this or that? When you do, I bet you aren’t motivated to go out and conquer your goals because again, you are telling yourself that you are wrong for not doing it. Therefore, today’s exercise in Loving Yourself Thin is to make a list of all of those “shoulds” that you’ve been telling yourself regarding your weight and/or overall health goals. You might come up with something like this:

• I should lose weight.

• I should eat better.

• I should stretch every day.

• I should get off of processed foods.

Once you have your list of all of your shoulds (it could be a long list, it’s whatever you come up with), make another list and replace all of those shoulds with the word could:

• I could lose weight.

• I could eat better.

• I could stretch each day.

• I could get off of processed foods.

How different does it feel when you replace should with could? Do you feel better about yourself almost instantly? Do you feel that the power to change is in your hands, instead of someone else (even though that someone is you ) dictating that you “should” lose weight?

On the surface this might appear to be a simple exercise, however it is one more step in the positive direction of releasing self criticism and negative self-talk, which helps to free up your thinking and allow some natural, positive motivation to occur. For example, don’t you feel much more of a possibility for action when you think, “I could lose weight” rather than the heavy, “I should lose weight”?

Now I feel that I must qualify this exercise with the statement that I’m not suggesting that you no longer strive to lose weight to increase your level of health and fitness, but instead we are just working to release that bond of negative thinking, thinking that is not going to help you achieve your goals anyway. If you’ve been struggling to get motivated to change your lifestyle, to lose weight, get fit, and allow your body to thrive at a maximum level of health, “shoulding all over yourself” isn’t going to help you get there.

If this is the first exercise in this series that you have read, please read Day 1, which introduces them. You could also read Day 14, which is a review of the 31 Days of Loving Yourself Thin series.

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