Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes breaks down the "shoulda, coulda, woulda" thinking trap that drains energy through guilt and resentment. She shows how to shift from ruminating on the past to learning what to do differently, replacing "should" with "I choose to" or "I will try," and softening perfectionism to reduce emotional strain.
Welcome back to Metacognitive Strategies for Happiness. I am your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. We're going to continue talking about unhelpful thinking and reasoning strategies and what we can do that might be more helpful. We talked last time about overgeneralization, perfect personalization, and constantly scanning for threats in the environment. Today we're going to talk about shoulda, coulda, woulda. I. Shoulda, coulda, woulda refers to things in the past. I should have called this person to let them know I was gonna be late. I could have done this better if I had more information back then. If I knew what then, what I know now, I would have. Well, all that stuff is in the past. You cannot change the past. Period, exclamation point. Continuing to ruminate on what you should have, could have, or would have done ain't gonna change the past. It's done. What is the effect of holding on to guilt and resentment about things you or someone else shoulda, coulda, or woulda done? A lot of times it just. It drains your energy. How could you use information that you have now to improve your thought processes? You know, I'll give you a hint. Once you identify what you should have done, how can you ensure that you will do it in similar situations in the future? Instead of feeling guilty and just holding on to that guilt and ruminating on what you should have, could have, would have done, Take that information and go, okay, I screwed up or I didn't make the best choice. How can I use my current knowledge to keep it from happening again? How can I learn from it and grow? How can you switch from feeling guilt, resentment, and anger to acceptance of the past and confidence that you've learned how to prevent the problem in the future? And that's what I just said I want you to think about instead of dwelling on that and continuing to beat yourself up for something Shoulda, coulda, woulda thinking, okay, I have more knowledge now. In retrospect, I would have made different choices or I wish I would have made different choices. Can't do that. Can't change the past. So how can I make sure that I don't feel this feeling again? How can I make sure that I'm not in this situation again? Shoulds can be exhausting because they often represent what other people have told us we should do or what we think other people expect of us. A lot of times we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we're trying to read other people's minds and we think they expect things out of us that they may not even expect. Shoulds also represent unreasonably high standards, such as I should cook dinner every night and I should always be patient with my children. Well, in an ideal world, that's true, but life is not ideal. Shoulds can motivate us to try to be the best we can be. But when you fail to do something you think you should have done, you may get angry at yourself and feel guilty. What's the impact of guilt and self anger on your health, happiness and relationships? Probably not good. So how else could you react when you don't do something you think you quote, should have? Well, one strategy is to compassionately recognize that, you know what? Nobody's perfect. I should have remembered to finish that project so it wasn't late. I should have gotten that project in on time. Well, I didn't. And I can't change the past. So apparently I need to learn from it, explore the choices and thought processes that led up to the failure. So I can look and I can say, I didn't get that project in on time. I should have. How did I get to that place? What choices did I make that kept me from keeping on track and keeping on task and getting that project done on time and address all or nothing thinking. For example, I didn't cook dinner every night this week, but I did make sure that I brought home takeout and we ate as a family. You know, obviously that has nothing to do with the work project, but that's an example of all or nothing thinking. If I feel guilty about not getting that project in, you know, instead of saying I didn't get that project in on time so I'm a failure, I may say I didn't get that project in on time, which is unfortunate and I need to learn from that. However, I did get a good product in. It happened to be two days late or something. Recognizing that I made a partial accomplishment, maybe not 100% accurate or 100% completion on time. If I can't be perfect, I won't even try. Sometimes we have this thought, what's the effect of this type of thinking on happiness, health and relationships? Rarely are we going to be perfect at anything all of the time. So it's important that we're willing to try, even if that means we're not going to be perfect. One thing I ask people to do sometimes if they have this perfectionistic thinking style, is to ask themselves, what would you tell a child who thought this way about most things in life? I wouldn't want my children to think this way, I would want them to think, I will try. And, you know, if I fail or if I'm not perfect, I will learn from it. I will grow from it. Another thinking error or thinking style that can cause problems is if I didn't get 100%, if it wasn't perfect, then I might as well have failed. No, that's not true. You know, you get Even when you get grades, there is a some wiggle room for people who get A's and wiggle room for people who get Bs. Very rarely do you have people getting 100% on their tests or on their class scores. It just means that they have room to learn. If you hold this belief that getting 100% is the only way to go, and if you don't get 100%, you failed, how does that affect your happiness, health, and relationships? One of the things that my daddy always used to say is, even people who graduate medical school at the bottom of the class are still called doctor. And I was like, okay, well, I don't really like that thought, but you make a good point. New strategies. Be alert for thinking styles that highlight danger, threats and make you feel powerless, such as all or none thinking and shoulds and should haves. When you notice that you're thinking that way, when you check your thoughts and you say, okay, the last three or five thoughts I had used some of those extreme words like all, always, never, nobody. You know, I need to check it and I need to start looking for exceptions to that. When I start thinking with these shoulds and should haves, I need to take that word out of my vocabulary. And instead of saying I should do this, I either need to say I choose to or I choose not to. Develop alternate thinking styles for all or none thinking. For example, it's better to try to do something than to not try at all. Or imperfection means I have room to grow and change your vocabulary to eliminate shoulds and extreme all or nothing words like every, always and never. Instead of saying, I must cook dinner every night for my family, I could say, I would like to cook dinner most nights for my family. That's more reasonable. I can make most nights. I am pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to cook dinner every single night for my family. Henceforth and forevermore, there's going to be a night here and there that they get takeout or we go out to a restaurant or something. Another thought would be, from now on, when I get upset, I will try to count to 10 before I speak to help me be more patient. Instead of saying I should always be patient with my children, I'm going to say I will. Instead of saying I should, I will try to count to 10 before I speak to help me be more patient. Recognizing that I. I am probably going to be imperfect with my patients and not be 100% patient 100% of the time. But I'm not holding myself to that hundred percent threshold. I'm allowing myself a little wiggle room to be human.
