The Voice That Drains You Has A Name
Shouldism is a survival strategy, not a truth.
Hey there! I’m Robert. Welcome to a free edition of my newsletter. Every week, I share my story of building my dreams in public with bootstrapping a startup in AI, Alignment, and Longevity. These newsletters include my reflections on the journey, and topics such as growth, leadership, communication, product, and more. Subscribe today to become the person and leader that people love, respect, and follow.
There’s a voice in my head.
It doesn’t scream. It whispers.
“You should’ve answered faster.”
“You should’ve been more available.”
“You should’ve handled that better.”
Maybe you hear it too.
It sounds like discipline.
It pretends to be growth.
What I’ve learned is, it doesn’t help me. Not fully, anyway.
I recently thought of a name for this voice—Shouldism.
Let’s talk about it.
🔤 This Week’s ABC
Advice: Shouldism Is Your Inner Child
Breakthrough: The Free Energy Principle
Challenge: Stop A Should
📖 Advice: Shouldism Is Your Inner Child
Growing up in a chaotic family environment, I used to hold a limiting belief that consistent unreciprocated sacrifice was the cost of love.
I have since learned that I always “shoulded” myself as a kid as a survival mechanism, to protect myself from the chaos.
I’ve learned that this blind shouldism bled into other facets of my life as I’ve grown older.
Let’s define it.
Shouldism: the internalized belief that your worth is measured by how well you meet perceived external expectations.
I have realized the root of this is fear.
Fear drove the survival mechanism I created subconsciously as a child.
Fear of being seen as less.
Fear of not being enough.
Fear of not being worthy of love.
This survival strategy my brain had learned, outlived its usefulness as I furthered the journey of life.
And eventually I determined I do not want Shouldism as my oracle any more.
The Real Cost Isn’t In The Moment
What’s one missed workout?
One unhealthy DoorDash meal because you’re working late?
One night’s bad sleep?
One skipped FaceTime with the family?
In isolation, nothing.
Zoomed out, everything.
Anyone who has burned out knows what I mean here. (Read more here, on my take on burnout)
Each “should” you obey chips away at you.
It creates life debt you must pay back at some point.
Nobody can escape that debt.
So how do I stop it in the moment?
Stopping Shouldism In The Moment
Here’s what I’m doing now…
When should shows up:
I recognize it, and I pause.
I think about what I want long term (e.g. great health, happy family, doing awesome work)
I ask—does this voice actually help me?
Then I choose intentionally.
That’s it. Pretty simple.
But that’s something interesting in itself—is there really choice?
Or am I just fooling myself into a guise of control?
Let’s talk about Neuroscience.
🚀 Breakthrough: The Free Energy Principle
“Words create worlds.”
–Dr. Laurie Santos
If you’ve ever read about Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle, you’ll know it’s a theory of the brain as a prediction machine, constantly trying to reduce surprise.
We minimize “free energy” (aka uncertainty or prediction error) by updating our beliefs to match the world—or forcing the world to match our beliefs.
Now think about “shouldism” in this light.
“I should be more confident” can be a top-down prediction your brain imposes, often based on outdated or inherited expectations. But when your lived reality doesn’t match that prediction, your system flags it as an error.
That internal tension—what we might call shame or frustration—is just the brain doing its job: trying to reduce surprise.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my “shoulds” are often untestable or impossible predictions.
They’re ungrounded in reality.
So I’m stuck chasing a phantom model my nervous system thinks is “truth.”
The antidote I’ve found?
Update the model.
Align it with present data.
Check yourself in the moment.
Replace “should” with what’s real, observable, and compassionate.
It explains why “should” feels like an internal tug-of-war…
Your brain’s just trying to reduce prediction error, and “shoulds” are noisy, unresolvable inputs.
Neuroscience is pretty damn cool.
You can literally rewrite your self-talk and your inner critic!
All of my friends know I’m such a huge nerd about these things.
So much so, that we’re even implementing these concepts of how the brain works into our product, Epistemic Me, to build hyper-personalized AI to help people transform into who they want to become by truly understanding their belief systems.
If you want to learn more and nerd out about these topics too, reach out!
One day hopefully I can get Karl Friston on the podcast!
💥 Challenge: Stop a Should
This week, I want you to just catch yourself when you say “I should…”
Then make it an intentional choice.
You got this!
Liked this article?
💚 Click the like button.
Feedback or addition?
💬 Add a comment.
Know someone that would find this helpful?
🔁 Share this post.
P.S. If you haven’t already checked out podcast, ABCs for Building The Future, where I reflect on my founder’s journey building a venture in the open. Check out my learnings on product, leadership, entrepreneurship, and more—in real time!
P.S.S. Want reminders on entrepreneurship, growth, leadership, empathy, and product?
Follow me on..