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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to think could, not should.

Focusing on what you could choose to do helps you see possibilities.

And that might help you make real progress toward your goals.

A person who reviewed one of my books recently noted that I rarely use the word should.

Instead, this person wrote that I generally aim to show people what they could do and how they might

benefit. I hadn't thought about it that way before, but it is true.

In the strategies I share, and as I think about my own decisions,

I definitely lean toward considering what we could do

instead of feeling constrained by shoulds,

whatever those are anyway.

Could opens up possibilities, while should invites obligation and guilt. Possibilities are a lot more attractive and often more helpful too.

In practice, what this means is that when you are facing a problem,

you want to generate lots of potential solutions. Maybe there are ideas that are more common,

or that someone has told you are right, but there may be other options too. If you generate lots of possibilities,

you might decide that some are appealing, which means you are more likely to follow through on

them. So, for instance, let's say you are having trouble sleeping. Lots of advice out there suggests not having screens in your bedroom.

And maybe that does help a lot of people.

But if you aren't going to move your TV out of your bedroom,

...