Wants vs. Shoulds
By Allie Larkin | August 11, 2017 |
I fell in love with a running trail. It’s shady and cool, even on the most relentlessly sunny days. There’s a creek to cross by jumping across rocks. The trail changes from gravel to sand to stone and back again, and the hills are a good challenge. Chubby California voles scurry around, and on two occasions, I even saw them swimming in the creek. You might be all, “Ew! Rodents!” but they look like tiny teddy bears and watching them swim seemed magical. Every trail run felt like the kind of adventure I dreamed about as a little kid.
Once I found that trail, I never had a problem drumming up the motivation to go running. I had a problem with running too much, putting in miles and miles while the laundry piled up at home, and the grocery situation left me wondering if mustard soup might be good.
Unfortunately, a particularly unnerving encounter with a rattlesnake made me realize that when I’m running solo I need a running route with more people and/or better cell phone coverage.
I abandoned my beloved trail and began running on goose-poop covered pavement at a loud, busy park. Even though I know running makes my brain a nicer place, it stopped feeling like something I wanted to do, and turned into a chore. I was still putting in my miles, but I dragged my feet about getting myself out the door in the morning, and my running procrastination was starting to mess with my schedule. I worried running could quickly turn into something I used to do. I thought the physical and mental health benefits I get from running should be motivation enough, and I was disappointed in myself for losing steam.
I’ve been listening to EMOTIONAL AGILITY: GET UNSTUCK, EMBRACE CHANGE, AND THRIVE IN WORK AND LIFE, by Susan David, PhD, and happened to hit the chapter on motivation right when I needed it most.
David talks about the difference in productivity and motivation in the face of what we want to do vs. what we feel like we should do. She says when we’re “compelled by a wagging finger, instead of a willing heart, we end up in an internal tug of war between good intentions and less than stellar execution, even when the end goals…are supposedly in line with our values.”*
David explains that the tug of war is like an argument between two parts of our brain. But, she says, “We can position our goals in terms of what we want to do, as opposed to what we have to or should. When we tweak our motivation in this way, we don’t have to worry about which part of us prevails – our passion or our intellect – because our whole self is working in harmony.”*
It’s probably not news to anyone that we like to do the things we like to do. But having the struggle of shoulds presented as human nature, not personal failing, triggered a huge shift in perspective for me. We all have a hard time with should! All of us! It’s not just you! It’s not just me! It’s human nature!
When I listened to that chapter, I immediately thought about writing. If you love writing, I’m sure you’ve felt those moments of harmony when the words flow almost effortlessly. But I’m also sure you’ve had times when writing feels like trying to swim in library paste.
I highly suspect that a certain strain of writer’s block is a build up of shoulds. Writing a novel takes a really long time, and in that span we’re walking around like should collectors, highly susceptible to turning our joy of creation into a task we cannot possibly complete fast enough. Well-meaning friends and family ask “Are you done yet?” or say they can’t wait to read the book when it’s finished, and then, when we’re back at our computers, the word count that seemed respectable before looks piddling in the face of done. Or we sink our motivation entirely on our own by pinning expectations and hopes and dreams to the finish line, but we have to get the writing done to get there. It’s easy to do, and it’s a tricky thing to shake.
Earlier this week, I got to put this theory to the test, when I caught myself dragging my feet about sitting down to write. I felt like the project I’m working on should be going faster. I had expectations attached to the finish line. But the day before I’d hit a snag with a scene I couldn’t quite visualize yet. I’d deleted almost as much as I’d written, and gotten antsy from sitting so long without any real progress. Doing that all over again wasn’t appealing, and the more I put off my writing time, the worse the finger-wagging got in my brain. I felt slow and stressed, and the idea of even opening my computer became completely unappealing.
Finally, instead of calling the day a wash like I might have before, I took a step back and thought about how I could tweak my motivation from should to want. There was a super fun scene further down my outline that I was excited to write. I let myself skip ahead, stopped thinking about the finish line, and focused only on that scene. Suddenly, the joy was back. I wrote with an ease similar to the feeling of running on my favorite trail. In the glow of that ease, I re-affirmed my love for the project, and my belief in my ability to write it. When I finished that scene, I wanted to tackle the scene that had been giving me problems. Once I wanted to, it was a much easier task. I only had to manage the problems of the scene, not the problems of myself AND the problems of the scene.
I’ve decided to keep an eye out for should-creep, and wagging fingers, and do the best I can to protect and nurture the want. I’m hoping it will give me more writing time with words that come easy and work that feels joyful.
As for running, I started a search for a new trail. I found one that’s busy enough (but not too busy) with a clear cell signal, and long stretches of shade. It’s paved, but clean. The hills are super fun, and the view is spectacular. I can’t wait to go back.
Do you struggle with writing shoulds? Have you found good ways to tweak your motivation?
*Transcribed from the audio version. Punctuation is based on my interpretation, not the actual text.
Allie Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novel Stay (2010), and Why Can’t I Be You (2013). She has never ordered a dog off the internet or assumed a new identity to attend a high school reunion.
Allie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Jeremy, and their German Shepherd, Stella.
Good stuff!
Thanks
Thanks, Tom!
My mantrs:
Don’t should on yourself.
The loss of that perfect trail bums me the heck out, and I’m not even a runner (though I feel deeply that I SHOULD be).
It’s so beautiful, Erin! So. Beautiful! But the new one is pretty good too. J got me into low heart rate training and it made it strangely easy to go back to being a runner, you don’t have to go through that awful beginning part. :)
I really like this idea. And your analogy to your running path. You’re right, there are scenes that I speed through because I’m interested in what’s going to happen and I have a clear idea of where it’s taking the story. Others? Not so much. When I feel that way, I’ll remember this blog and work at reframing my attitude. Thanks!
Thanks, Maggie! I hope it helps!
Allie, I love this post. This, right here, got to me:
I’ve known for a while that the reason I continue to struggle to reconnect with my work is that I haven’t been able to effectively make it my own again and do it just for me (‘willing heart’). I’ve short-coded the issue to ‘industry expectations.’ But that’s not it. It’s the ‘should’ing’ issue, really — the ‘should write,’ ‘should produce finished copy,’ ‘should send something new to my agent,’ ‘should better account for my hours,’ ‘should atone for sales sins of the past,’ ‘should improve at promotion,’ ‘should run a sale/buy an ad,’ ‘should write a blog post,’ etc… I feel so boxed in and judged by my shoulds that there isn’t any oxygen left for wants.
I’m going to sit with that, in a nice room with plenty of oxygen, and see what I might do about it.
Thank you for the fresh perspective. (And sorry again that the site was misbehaving as you tried to load your post. It *should* be better moving forward!) Happy trails, Al!
Thanks, T! I literally stopped in my tracks when I heard that part of the book. I think we’re in a business that requires us to be so self-motivated, and it’s so easy to feel constantly mired in expectations. That time when we’re not producing never feels like a break, because of all of the should. I’m finding it freeing to think “I have to set up my brain to succeed,” and then protecting that becomes part of the job.
I love your oxygen analogy.
And no worries on the site! I hope it starts behaving again soon!
I am on vacation. Well, it’s called “vacation”. It’s actually long-haul trucking.
I drove my family–and dog–across the USA. We did it without ever once eating at Arby’s. We have gold status at La Quinta. (It’s pet friendly.) We listened to the first two books of Narnia. We met eagles up close, ate huckleberry ice cream sandwiches at a prairie gas station, stayed extra days in surprisingly hip Sioux Falls.
So why did it not feel like vacation? I was not writing. Even straight highways require that you pay attention to the road. It was impossible to plot, or chat with my characters. Not with C.S. Lewis yakking away.
All of which tells me that I do not lack motivation. I don’t need to tweak anything. I’m not a slave to shoulds. What I need is get out of this hell called vacation.
Nice post, as always, Allie.
What an excellent insight, and one that I can (and should? no, WANT to) apply right away, not just to my writing but to the myriad other things I really do value but keep not getting around to, somehow.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this wonderful post, Allie. I spent far too many years trying to live up to my own expectations – disregarding my energy levels to do what I felt I “should.” Following our joy is much easier and actually makes us more productive in the end. I find myself juggling creative projects to work on the ones that call to me, and doing the others in THEIR own time. And when it comes to writing novels, I reward myself for each chapter written (because it’s hard work) with something tangible that I enjoy (recently, this is coloring mandalas, which lets my creativity go wild).
I love your analogy of the running trail. When something feels good to us, our motivation is always there. I cycle along the rapids of the St. Lawrence River six months of the year and never have to push myself out the door. Being out in Nature revitalizes us and feeds our creative spirit. Happy trails to you and everyone here.
Allie, thanks for the good counsel. For me this morning, a great example of the stern face of the Shoulds unwrinkled by the welcoming hand of the Wants: I have a travel piece due that, even though I love the area I’m writing about, knew it was on a deadline, and I was moping about it.
But then, as I was droopingly saying to myself, “Damn, I really should start on this” a phrase that will be perfect for the article jumped into my mind. (It won’t mean anything out of context, but it was “heaven’s picnic grounds.”) Just hearing that phrase in my mind made me WANT to write the piece, which I’ll begin on after finishing spouting off here.
That lift was a simple re-framing. It’s akin to what I heard some good advice about before: if you can manage to say “I GET to do this” rather than “I HAVE to do this,” you’re halfway to getting there. Our brains, such battlegrounds…
Thank you for this helpful post! I really struggle with the “shoulds” too. I like your suggestion about skipping ahead to write a different scene, and I’d love to figure out more strategies along these lines. I often turn to research–but this can be a cop out on my part. I’ll spend the whole morning looking up cool facts. Still, sometimes the reason I’m stuck is that I truly haven’t found the right approach yet, and something I read will eventually jostle that loose.
I’m an odd duck, perhaps, in that I do best with a Should that requires me to try, but once I’m engaged, a Should is too much pressure. Then I have to shift it to a Want, where a spirit of playfulness and experimentation allows me to proceed.
All these mind tricks, huh?
I’m glad you found an alternate running trail!
As a side note, your piece reminds me of what Dr. Doug Lisle says when it comes to eating well. It’s something like “Stop trying to be a better person and work on setting up the environment for success.”
As always, you inspire me by making the whole “thing” (writing, life, pets, parenting, etc.) lighter. Easier to tackle. Possible. Thanks!
I know how you feel about losing the trail. My lake is under construction and it took me a while to find another body of water to run around. I don’t know why, but I love running alongside rivers or around a lake. Running trails that are not ideal takes away from the whole experience. Anyway, once I found it, it made running fun again.
Going to have to check out that book. I definitely have “should” issues.