Our most deeply held values and beliefs are nothing more than our most emotionally saturated thoughts. Thus, when we get down to the serious business of working through limiting beliefs that may be retarding our professional growth, we will need to deal with some powerful feelings that have been fueling these beliefs for some time. Changing the belief system behind our perspective of reality can be as painful emotionally as severing a limb is physically. One of the ways we avoid the pain of examining our most familiar beliefs is by convincing ourselves that we "should" operate according to this belief system.

Whenever we say to ourselves, "I should ..." we are speaking out of an internalized belief system that reflects our inability to trust ourselves. The bummer about "shoulds" is that when we are dominated by them, we are also dominated by the fear of being rejected or abandoned in some way, because that's the core emotional fear that activates many of them. These ongoing fears leave many of us drained and exhausted.

Part of the work in this stage is to take a deeper look not only at what the thoughts swirling just below the surface of our consciousness are but also at what they are doing to us daily. Those pesky little shoulds "I should lose weight... I should stop smoking... I should have a bigger house... I should spend more time with my kids... I should be making as much money as my sister... " — that keep nipping away at our psyches are the psychic equivalent of Chinese water torture. Every time we use the word should, either mentally or verbally, not only are we giving our power away, we are also losing energy that is vital to our ability to take creative ownership of our careers and our lives.

The trick to releasing the shoulds is realizing that they have an emotional component as well as an intellectual one. You can make a list of the shoulds that you need to release, but you will be making this list over and over unless you deal with the feelings that keep them clinging to your psyche like Velcro. Obviously, listing them is just going to remind you of ways you are falling short of the glorious role you are playing to prove you are "good enough." You need to try something more strategic.

The following two exercises are designed to help you begin to release your litany of shoulds and identify your authentic priorities. Many people feel a tremendous surge of energy while doing this work. When you release your shoulds you finally stop giving yourself those messages that drain you of the energy you need to move forward.

I got the name for this exercise from a client who told me that when she became discouraged, she often realized that she was having a "should attack." To help retrain her thought process, she actually got down on her knees and pulled the weeds out of her flowerbed. She visualized herself pulling the "shoulds" out of her psyche as she pulled the weeds out of the ground. This client developed a physical ritual that got to the heart of the work for her. Likewise, we need to physically release the emotions connected to our shoulds if we are going to make meaningful progress in thinning these "mental weeds."

"Kids!?" I've had incredulous clients thunder (these are usually the ones who are not parents; parents get this exercise before I'm through describing it). "I'm a busy person," I had one client respond in a huff. "I don't have time for this! I have important career decisions to make and I'm on a deadline!"

The reason it's important to do this exercise around kids is that they reawaken an energy that has been dormant in many of us for far too long — the energy of gentleness. Spending time with children reminds you that a vital part of getting in touch with your authentic self is learning to be gentle with yourself. Phrases such as "Get that client meeting or you can get a new job! Are you an idiot? Didn't you hear me tell you?" are the types of harsh messages that too many of us have become accustomed to in our jobs. What's worse, since the way we speak to others is a direct reflection of the way we speak to ourselves, the mean-spirited behavior and verbal abuse that takes place in many workplaces reflects a growing problem — we are suffering from a gentleness deficiency.

The limiting beliefs and self-doubts that plague most of us are formidable opponents. One of the most effective ways of dealing with these harsh internal messages is to learn to question every single should and limiting belief with the gentle innocence of children. It was only when we were children that our psyches were malleable enough to absorb these beliefs without questioning them. By acknowledging our limiting beliefs and honoring the way they may have served us in the past, we align mentally with what's going on inside us. Telling our-elves that we are "wrong" to hold the beliefs we do or denying them altogether just keeps us fighting a losing battle. Now that I've explained why you need to be around children to do this exercise (spending some time in a public park is a great way to do this), let me be a bit more specific about how this exercise works.

While you need to be around a bunch of kids, you're also going to need some privacy for part of this exercise to do a bit of written reflection. This means that whether you are spending time with a friend's kids or your own, you are going to need a buddy who helps you take a "time-out" in the corner of your room while you write in your journal.

The first part of this exercise is easy — just get a feel for the kids. If you are in a public park, notice how they run and play and interact with each other. If you are with some kids you know, get right down there on the floor and play with them. Notice how they react when they want something, how they recover after a fall, and how much they trust their caregivers to take care of them.

When you are ready, take a time-out and take out the picture of yourself as a child. It's time to reflect on what you imagine you were like when you were about the age of the children around you. Now, from the perspective of that child you were in the past, take out your journal or laptop and start listing your shoulds. Just write them all down as fast as you can. For example:

• I should make more money.
• I should have a better car.
• I should get married.
• I should lose weight so my favorite jeans fit.

List as many as you can as fast as you can; don't bother making sense of them yet. Please be sure to include your thoughts about the professional role you "should" play in life:

• I should stay at my current firm.
• I should start my own business.
• I should learn a second language.
• I should be teaching more classes.

Once you start winding down, take a look at this list from the perspective you would have had as a child. As vividly as possible, try to imagine yourself as a small child sitting next to you reviewing each item on this list and asking with the innocence that only kids possess why you should do all these things. If you can't explain why a particular goal is on your list, you might consider weeding it out. Bear in mind that a child is likely to ask why doing a particular thing will be fun for you and how it will make you happy. If any of your shoulds can't pass that test, it's time to weed them out!

Take your time with Weeding the "Shoulds." Some people can do this exercise in an afternoon. However, other clients have reported that they kept coming up with new and subtler shoulds over the course of a week. Getting through this exercise successfully is critical to building the self-acceptance necessary to proceed to the next stage, Emotional Ownership.

Let's face it — we all want it all! Wealth, power, flexibility... with as little effort on our part as possible, please. Ask most people what their ideal lifestyle would be, and frequently you will hear something along the lines of, "I'd like to earn enough money to set my own work schedule... to have a beautiful home... to spend time with my children ... to travel whenever I want...." The list goes on.

One of the issues that many of us have to confront as we integrate our diverse desires is how to prioritize. When we have a clear picture of what our authentic goals are, as opposed to what we believe we "should" pursue in life, we are able to make temporary sacrifices in the interest of our long-term success without having our energy drained by self-doubt. This is particularly vital in a culture in which we are presented with so many choices and where the media encourages us to "have it all."

One of the first steps in achieving your goals is deciding how much you really want them. When our desire for something is a reflection of our authentic sense of self, we can focus on achieving this goal in a way that maximizes our ability to achieve it. One of the main impediments to success is that many of us have been taught to suppress our passion in favor of the logical arguments we hear from others about what we "should" do. Because of this, many of us become confused trying to separate what we really want from what we have been taught we should want.

Now that you have some experience listing your shoulds, you are ready for the next exercise, which is designed to help you identify the genuine desires that you may have suppressed while making choices based on the values you have internalized from others.

This exercise consists of three parts: reviewing your shoulds, describing your authentic self, and ranking your priorities.

1. Reviewing your shoulds. Basically, your shoulds are a (sometimes harsh) list of beliefs about how you aren't measuring up. The good news here is that all these negative beliefs can be transformed into positive goals that reflect your authentic self. For example, if one of your shoulds takes the form of "I should trust my own judgment" this can be transformed into the realization that if you were operating from your authentic self, you would be confident about your decisions and not driven by the need to constantly solicit others' opinions. When you are being your authentic self, you are guided by your genuine values and highest ideals. Go through your list of shoulds, and pick out those that you can transform into characteristics that you feel describe you when you are at your best.
2. Describing your authentic self. After reworking your shoulds into a list of characteristics that define your authentic self, write a description of this self in the third person. Your job here is to write as if your authentic self were a good friend whom you know intimately. Write as much detail as you can about how your authentic self relates to others. What kind of life does he or she have? What are the priorities of your ideal self? As you describe the inner world and the life choices of your authentic self, remember that this description, however genuine, is related in many ways to your concept of your ideal self. Bear in mind that your ideals and desires will constantly change as the world changes.
3. Ranking your priorities. After describing your authentic self, answer the following questions:

• What are the three most important things in your life right now?
• Do you have mixed feelings about any of these priorities?
• Does the way you are living reflect these priorities? If not, why not?

The only way you can make a mistake with this exercise is if you answer it the way you feel you should. One of the main reasons that it is vital to weed out the shoulds is that these negative messages have the ring of internal commands rather than suggestions and keep us so rigidly focused on what we "should" become that we are no longer enjoying the process of getting there.

Shoulds are sneaky. Our psyches can fool us by allowing the rigid roles we play to mutate, so we may think we've gotten in touch with our true selves but all we've really done is switch masks at the costume ball of life. One of the key areas where some of the self-help systems fall down on the job is in preaching that all we have to do is think happy thoughts, and we will reconnect with our true selves while our troubles dissolve into the light. Promises like these are the philosophical equivalent of popping a pill to feel better so you don't have to learn from life's challenges. Both our negative and our positive feelings and experiences are vital parts of reality. Getting in touch with your authentic self will help you make good use of both the negative and the positive forces in your life in a gentle and transformative way.