Anni in Conversation on turning shoulds into coulds, and priorities into choices

In this episode join Anni in conversation as she discusses turning shoulds into coulds, and priorities into choices

Many years ago I trained in the theory and practise of Transactional Analysis and as with most trainings there are often one or two things which stand out and stay with me, and become part of who I am. One of these things was a simple exercise called 'Turning Should into Could'.  We were asked to make a list of all things that we said to ourselves that we Should be doing or have done, and, or all the things that we Should not have done, or Should not be doing.  

I remember my list was long, and it was a list that I regularly visited and revisited and gave myself a hard time over. The list never seemed to get any shorter, if anything the older I got and the more responsibilities I had the longer the lists got. Having written our Should/Should not lists we were asked to write everything down again only this time turning every Should into a Could. This small word change was transformative for me, I realised through this simple shift in mindset that as soon as something became a 'I could do this....' that I had choice, that there was a sense of possibility and that it really was up to me.

Most recently I have, thanks to  Raj Kumar a speaker on the Marketing Leaders Programme, started to think about making choices rather than setting priorities. When we think about Priorities we tend to think of a numbered list, and rather like the Shoulds the list tends to be added to and to grow longer with things jockeying for top position or dropping to the bottom of the list and eventually off it.  When we think instead about Choices there is an immediate sense of possibility, of choosing to do something because it is important, it matters to us, to our business and to the future direction.

Find out more about the Marketing Leaders Programme  or find out more about Raj do follow him on LinkedIn and to find out more about me Anni Townend, head to my website annitownend.com.

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