A few weeks ago, I shared a post about finding the line between self-discipline and forcing. I promised you guys a follow-up with my personal experience navigating my mind’s stories and “shoulds” in a conscious, intentional way. As someone who used to very much feel defined by the stories and rules I set for myself, it’s definitely been a journey to overcome that control-seeking part of me and let go. It didn’t happen all at once, and truthfully, it’s always a work in progress. But I can say with full conviction that I am nowhere NEAR where I was just a few short years ago.

The past 10 years of my life have been about dismantling and burning old stories, rules, and “shoulds” one at a time. With each one I burned down, I felt so light that I was sure I was fully free, not noticing how many other cages were still in place until I came face to face with their bars. And so, it took a while until I truly felt like I became aware of the many, many “shoulds” I’d picked up over the years. It was almost as though I had to take them step-by-step, one at a time, and I wasn’t ready to tackle the most deeply ingrained stories until I had built up the muscle of rejecting the more surface-level ones.

If you are finding yourself perpetually locked in these patterns of “shoulds” and feeling like there has to be a different way, these practices might help.

I know it’s scary to let go of what you know, and trust me, it’s a daily process for me to practice these in my own life, but I promise that it does get so much easier with time. And so, here are some things that have been helping me get better at discerning, so that I can follow the true heart impulses over the fear-based voices in my mind.

Noticing and Questioning the Should Impulse

The first thing I did was just try to be more aware and notice when these should impulses came in and what they represented. For example, I noticed I had many *should* impulses in the early morning before breakfast and then in the early afternoon right after lunchtime. There was a deep fear of “wasting” that precious time that I had told myself needed to be spent doing something creative or productive.

I had convinced myself that I was most creative in the morning, and if I missed that opportunity, then the whole day was wasted. So each morning, I would park myself at my computer immediately after my morning routine and try to write for at least an hour or two.  Then in the afternoon, a time that is associated for most of us with getting the brunt of our work done, I filled my schedule to the brim with job applications, blog work, and more writing if I decided I hadn’t done “enough” in the morning. At some point, I would go for a walk or do a workout, but even that seemed to always come from a “should” place of knowing I had been too sedentary that day. Even after dinner, I often forced myself to tie up more loose ends and finish some residual work, never feeling like I truly could stop and rest without guilt. Needless to say, I was on the fast track to burnout, and the funniest thing was, I was absolutely doing it to myself. There was literally ZERO PURPOSE of my running myself into the ground like that.

When I actually started paying attention to all these impulses and behaviors and how automatic and unconscious they often were, I realized that I didn’t actually NEED to do any of them.

Many of the things in my to-do list were quite arbitrary and totally self-imposed, and yet I truly felt like it would be the end of the world if I didn’t accomplish them. I never stopped to ask, why am I doing this, and so I kept myself on the hamster wheel. I’ll bet many of you can relate.

Arguably the most necessary task on my list was applying to jobs because that’s one of my highest priorities right now, but even that felt fruitless if I was really honest with myself because I was applying to as many jobs as I could without actually discerning what job felt right and I would actually want to do. I wasn’t going about the process in a conscious, intentional way and was really just doing it to check off the boxes. And that unsurprisingly caused me to move in the opposite direction of the outcome I wanted.

I had made myself so busy with tasks that didn’t really feel right in my heart, in an attempt to fool myself into believing I felt purposeful and inspired, when in reality I was only draining my energy and preventing myself from moving toward what my heart was calling me to.

In other words, I had overpopulated my to-do list in the attempt to be so busy I literally couldn’t take a breath or break if I had any hope of accomplishing it all. Then I would collapse into bed each night so exhausted that I would instantly fall asleep, knowing I had another full day the next day. Never stopping, never stilling, never questioning. A perfect formula for escape.

And so, when it finally hit me that pretty much my entire to-do list that had felt so important and nonnegotiable to me, could be totally scrapped and …..NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN…I decided it was time to try a different approach.

Questioning the Should Impulses

When I truly began to ask where these *should* impulses were coming from, I recognized that they seemed to all come from one of two sources.

A desire to escape

A faulty association between work and worth

Let’s unpack those.

The desire to escape is not particularly new for me. In the past, I’ve struggled with things like under-eating and over-exercising, using my body to escape from the discomfort of feeling a lack of control in my life. After I healed my relationship with food and my body, this impulse to escape largely transferred over into work and social media, both of which provided a chance to totally disconnect from reality and enter a whole new zone within which I felt totally in control.

Work and worth

This one was admittedly a bit tougher to recognize and come to terms with. Mostly because our culture is built on the tenet of equating work with worth, and it’s probably what our parents, teachers, peers have modeled to us for years and years. And while hard work is certainly important and provides substantial value to society, it IS NOT ANY MEASURE OR INDICATOR FOR YOUR INHERENT SELF-WORTH.

I’m going to say that again because if you’re anything like me, that statement could make total logical sense to you when you are are just reading it or seeing someone else practice it. But when it comes to letting YOURSELF off the hook and giving yourself the rest you are craving WITHOUT feeling the need to earn it first? Forget about it! We, as a culture, have become deeply addicted to our work. And it’s not because we enjoy it so much! It’s because somehow, somewhen, we learned that if we are good productive workers who do what is expected of us (and then some) then we will be accepted. We will be loved. We will be okay.

This is such a tough association to break because it doesn’t appear to others as a problem, in the way certain other addictions do. Work is so glorified in our culture that overdoing it is seen as a point of pride or a badge of honor. As if running ourselves into the ground is some kind of marker of making it in the world.

But hear this. Work is not what gives you your worth. How can it, when you as a whole are defined by so much more than your productivity output? It’s in the way you show up for your loved ones, the way you show up for yourself, the way you commit to constantly growing and evolving. Your work is simply one of the ways that you can offer value to the world (even if it sometimes doesn’t feel that way), but it is not THE ONLY way you provide value.

You bring value to the world simply by being YOU. By being the trust most beautiful version of yourself. And you become that by following what the truest deepest voice inside of you calls you to, not by checking off some arbitrary boxes.

 

Doing work just for the sake of being busy is the same as being in a relationship just for the purposes of societal validation and to avoid being single, where you are simply going through the motions of what a relationship traditionally entails without actually being invested at all. Sounds terrible right? Not just for you but for the partner in question!

It’s the same with the work we do for the express purpose of checking off that box of being “productive” when we do not check in with its actual value and whether it aligns with our values. We are, on the surface, doing the thing we are “supposed” to do, and yet we feel so empty and depleted afterward. Why?

I strongly believe that work can feel fucking amazing when it’s something we truly feel called to do. When we feel that we are contributing to something we believe in, something no one else could do like we can, it feels exhilarating and empowering and truly FUN. No, maybe not all the time, but consistently enough that you feel fulfilled and satisfied and truly proud of yourself. That is a feeling that can’t quite be fabricated by simply going through the motions, following external metrics and shoulds over your own heart’s calling.

 

Mind Vs. Heart Impulses

So it took me a while, but I became pretty good at recognizing the “shoulds,” those impulses that I could easily recognize by the stories of the mind that they were often tied with. And at the same time, I noticed there was another kind of impulse that felt qualitatively different.

Unlike the fear-based impulses that felt constricting and stressful, that instantly raised my heart rate and made me feel like I was running behind (even though when I would actually dig deep, I saw that this was all in my head), these impulses felt calm and sure. There was no gripping sense of urgency, no fear of what would happen if I didn’t follow it. They felt more like gentle suggestions, nudges, and curiosities. A “what if I tried this?” rather than “I NEED to do this.”

For instance, the impulse to reach out to someone I had once connected with.

Or the impulse to turn my phone on airplane mode for the day and spend most of the day away from my screens and out in nature or practicing yoga.

Or the impulse to look into a job opportunity that was totally not on my master plan list but for some reason felt exciting.

I began to recognize these as “heart impulses.” They seemed to come from a totally different place than the mind ones, and when I was totally honest with myself, they felt much more aligned with the kind of life I actually wanted to live. Instead of feeling like a basket case, running around from one must-do task to another, never actually seeing the outcomes I wanted to see, snapping at loved ones, and generally feeling run-down and depleted, I was putting aside all stories and expectations and just focusing on the next right step. And somehow, things began falling into place without my having to force them there.  This way of living felt easier, lighter, more (dare I say) magical. How could the mind, with all its preset plans and fears and limitations, compete with that?

The Experiment

I wanted to see what would happen if I truly committed to only following the heart impulses and rejecting the mind impulses. Could life really feel so easy and flowy? Could I really NOT do all the things I’d spent so long convinced were keeping my world spinning on its axis, and not have anything terrible happen? Would taking away the “shoulds” mean I would become lazy and never DO anything again?

The biggest motivator for me was that I didn’t like the person I became when I was operating from that constant place of *should*. I became less compassionate, less joyful, less loving. It was like every person in my life was an obstacle on my path to fulfilling all the tasks on my list. I had an almost obsessive need to do do do because something in me recognized that if I stopped, I would have no choice but to face all the discomfort, pain, and uncertainty that I had been so diligently avoiding.

It was scary to think about letting go of all the rules I’d been living by (that I hadn’t even been registering as rules) and fully trust-falling into the unknown. But I realized I had two options – keep living the way I had and keep seeing the same results OR try something new and just… see what happened.

I decided to choose the latter, determined to be as conscious and aware as possible, and truly pay attention to not only how these new practices made me feel, but also how they affected my life.

So I spent some time going inward. I meditated, I journaled, I went on long walks with nothing capturing my attention except the path I walked day after day. And it occurred to me that my body and heart were asking for something, though it wasn’t the next great idea or project to throw myself into like I had expected.

Instead, it was more rest. More connection. Less expectations. More play. Less consumption of content.

So I became disciplined about things I was letting fly before. Where before I was only disciplined about the work I did, thinking that was where my worth lay, I became disciplined about my rest. I became more discerning about the things taking up my time and attention and more unapologetic in owning my truth and what felt right for me.

I didn’t get up at 8am to work on my writing. Instead, I slept in and spent the morning baking and having a leisurely brunch with my mom, chatting over steaming cups of coffee and pumpkin bread, and deeply connecting for the first time in weeks.

I stopped applying to jobs that didn’t interest me at all, that I was just applying to because I told myself I “should” and instead drastically narrowed my search and began practicing more self-honesty and self-loyalty as I allowed myself to dream a little bigger.

I stopped filling my free moments with social media or podcasts and instead allowed for more empty space to enter.

I let myself blow off the various obligations I had given myself and decided to focus on mostly doing what felt good and spending time with my loved ones. No time limits, no subtle annoyance about being taken away from “important” tasks, just being fully deeply present.

I stopped identifying myself or my self-worth with how many things I crossed off my to-do list for the day and instead focused on how I was showing up for myself and for my loved ones. The kindness I showed myself in choosing to go to bed a little earlier, or doing something I love just because, or taking a rest day when my body felt tired.

Whenever the “should” thoughts would come in, I would tell myself, it’s just an experiment. If this doesn’t work, you can always return to the old way.

 

The Results

Well, I’m currently living them. That’s honestly what I love about this work; there is no outcome or end result to attach to. Unlike the clear black and white rule-based thinking I used to rely on, this is a whole lot more gray and nuanced. It requires a lot of faith to live this way, to trust that even if you can’t see them right then, big changes are happening. You need to stick with it even when it feels like nothing is happening at all, and that can be exceptionally challenging.

When I first started focusing on listening to my heart over my mind, I noticed that life majorly sloooooooowed down. I had zero urge to create, or make plans, or run around doing a million different things. Inspiration was at an all-time low, but rather than seeing that as a problem to solve, I looked at it as a totally neutral and temporary fact of life. 

During this time, what felt good was lots of reading. And walks. And yoga. And some writing, the majority of which was for my eyes only. It was scary because part of me was sure I would just float forever in perpetual idleness, never finding the motivation to do any kind of work ever again. But I told myself to stick with it a little longer, and more importantly, to relax into feeling good without waiting for the other shoe to drop or for someone to come reprimand me. To give myself permission to enjoy the extra time and space and just do whatever makes me happy (case in point: solo adventures)

And sure enough, after a while of this slower living, I began to feel a shift. Suddenly, I was flooded with creative ideas, almost too many to keep up with, or I would find myself unable to get up from my writing desk for hours because the words kept flowing and flowing. Or I had a sudden inexplicable urge to apply to several jobs that felt truly exciting to me, and a task that normally felt quite soul-sucking and tedious actually became invigorating and exciting.

This was heart-led action, and it felt nothing like the should-based doing that had characterized my past life.

This was expansive and freeing, rather than constricting and stressful. It was scarier because this kind of action came with a whole lot less certainty and guarantees, but I found that this also made it much more exciting. Instead of x leading to y, each action felt like it could have an infinitude of possible outcomes. But most importantly, this type of action didn’t feel charged with expectation because I wasn’t doing it for the sake of proving my worth. I was doing it because it felt good to do it, and that made all the difference.

 

And so, my point in writing this is not to rail against hard work or to say that the key to living a happy successful life is to always be doing things that feel easy and safe. It’s simply to offer that maybe the key to sustainable growth and success involves a healthy balance of both hard work and radical self-compassion. Even more importantly, it requires a level of consciousness and awareness that empowers you to be honest with yourself about when you are pushing yourself too hard, or not pushing yourself enough. It’s a constant practice of walking the line between moving forward and pulling back, between pushing harder and taking a rest, and using your intuition as the barometer that tells you exactly what you need.

 

And I certainly don’t have it all figured out. I still sometimes work way too hard on something that isn’t for my highest good, simply because it feels better than standing still. I still doubt my intuition sometimes when it tells me to drop something that my mind is firmly attached to. But I think maybe, it’s not about always getting it perfect or staying balanced all the time. Because pushing ourselves to the next level, however consciously and spiritually we go about doing it, will always require an embracing of some discomfort and imbalance. I just think there’s a big difference between the invigorating discomfort of evolution and the constricting discomfort of going against your truth.

To slightly paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books Eat Pray Love, sometimes to lose balance for the things we love is part of living a balanced life.

 

So here’s to losing balance, but doing so with grace and intention. Here’s to being disciplined about following our hearts, and doing so with compassion and gentleness. May we always hear our intuition loud and clear, and may we have the courage to choose to follow it.